Prince Harry vs Piers Morgan: gloves are off, but what's been said?

Harry has the upper hand on a settlement with The Daily Mirror and Piers Morgan, finishing the high-profile phone hacking saga of Prince Harry. What happened and what have the two said about the whole saga? We look into the Piers/Harry/Mirror chain of events.

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In December, Harry won a substantial part of his case against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN). A high court judge awarded him £140,600 in damages after ruling that Harry’s phone was hacked from the end of 2003 to April 2009.

On Friday 9th February, Harry got another win and was awarded £400,000 in compensation in the settlement, as the BBC reports. Harry receives this compensation from MGN, which publishes The Daily Mirror, for being the victim of more than 140 instances of illegal news gathering.

So that’s the end of that, then…? Think again. Piers Morgan is far from finished with the royals who live in the USA. This battle has got legs and Piers Morgan will be heard.

In a Trump-like rant, Morgan claimed that Harry "wouldn’t know truth if it slapped him in his California-tanned face", and he also claimed Harry and his wife, were trying to "destroy the British monarchy".

Piers hasn't been subtle in communicating that he has a massive problem with Harry and his wife. For years, he's not been shy about making his views known. He called Harry a traitor in his article in the New York Post, accused him of trying to destroy the monarchy, and made assumptions about how his brother William feels about the King of California.

Yes, he did, and although a judge ruled in his favor, there has been no apology from Morgan for his part in the illegal phone hacking of the Prince. In fact, quite the opposite: Morgan has been relentless in his criticism of Harry.

Piers continued: "The cold hard reality is that Harry hasn't just burned his bridges with the royals, he's bombed it into matchsticks", as he wrote in his article for The New York Post.

He called him a 'non-working royal' who performs no duty for his country, comparing him to William.

It may come as a surprise, but it seems Piers doesn't really like Harry. However, many won't forget that Harry served his country with pride and did two tours of duty in Afghanistan.

That won’t stop Piers from voicing his strong opinions about the wayward royal. He continued by saying that Harry "lives a life of luxurious laziness in California."

Facts and accuracy have nothing to do with Piers Morgans's personal vendetta against the royal. In yet another one of his unhappy articles for The Sun in 2023, he wrote that Harry was "torching the institution of the Monarchy that he loves to exploit for gazillions of dollars."

Despite it all, it was Piers Morgan and the Mirror group who performed illegal acts according to the court. They had to make a substantial payment to Harry for a practice that was against the law - even though it's, sadly, common.

"Everything we said was happening at Mirror Group was, in fact, happening," Prince Harry's lawyer said in a statement read outside the court. Indeed, he added, it was "far worse as the Court ruled in its extremely damning judgment."

Morgan responded by denying he knew about the illegal phone hacking. As reported by Reuters, he "says he has never hacked a phone nor told anybody else to do so." Naturally, he did not really feel responsible.

Harry’s lawyer continued by saying what had happened We call again for the authorities to uphold the rule of law and to prove that no one is above it. That includes Mr Morgan, who as editor knew perfectly well what was going on, as the judge held."

After Harry’s lawyer's statement, Piers Morgan said on X: "I totally agree with Prince Harry that ruthless intrusion into the private lives of the Royal Family for financial gain is utterly reprehensible … and I hope he stops doing it."

The phone hacking scandal was not just about Harry. Quite a few celebrities, including actors and partners of famous people, were subject to the Mirror’s illegal tactics of obtaining information, the court determined.

We are not sure yet of the total costs the Mirror group will have to pay but the High Court in London stated that the payment people were seeking from the newsgroup was in the region of 2 million dollars, as hinted by Deadline.

MGN, the group that has been at the heart of this claim, released a statement: "Where historical wrongdoing took place, we apologise unreservedly, have taken full responsibility and paid compensation."

But such is the passion of Morgan's disdain for Harry that this is probably not the last we have heard in the battle between Harry and Piers. The prince isn’t letting it go either. He says that he will "continue to see it through to the end".