Thursday, April 2, 2026 - Private messages exchanged between Prince Harry and a journalist more than a decade ago have resurfaced in court, revealing a series of informal and flirty conversations that are now part of his ongoing legal battle against Associated Newspapers.
The messages, presented during closing arguments in the Duke
of Sussex’s lawsuit against the publisher of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday,
were exchanged between December 2011 and January 2012 with then-Mail on Sunday
journalist Charlotte Griffiths.
“It’s H,incase u were confused by name and picture!!! X,”
Harry wrote in one message dated December 4, 2011.
“What a fun weekend of naughtiness, can’t we all get up to
no good in the countryside every weeked damn it?? Smooches,” Griffiths replied.
In the exchanges, Griffiths referred to Harry as “Mr.
Mischief,” while the prince joked about attending formal events, saying he had
to “make polite conversation with strange people at a dinner” while “begging
them for money for charity.”
In a later message dated January 22, 2012, Griffiths wrote,
“I WISH I was there sugar but unfortunately stuck in Cornwall doing Army
stuff,” to which Harry responded in part, “Otherwise I would have been there
playing and then drinking u under the table,obvi!!”
He added, “Just wish I could have been there…especially now
that you’re there! Dou ever work?!!…. Hope you’re really well Griff…Miss our
movie snuggles!! I’m off comms all week incase u think I’m being rude,keep me
posted xxx xxx xxx.”
The messages were exchanged after Harry’s relationship with
Chelsy Davy ended in 2011 and before he began dating Cressida Bonas in 2012. He
later met Meghan Markle in 2016, and the couple married in 2018.
The resurfacing of the messages comes as part of Harry’s
lawsuit, launched in October 2022, in which he accuses Associated Newspapers of
unlawful information gathering, including phone hacking and other privacy
breaches between 1993 and 2011.
Associated Newspapers has denied the allegations and
suggested that some information may have come from individuals within Harry’s
social circle. In a witness statement, Griffiths said, “We were all the same
age and going to the same places in London at night so knew each other socially
for a time.”
She added, “My friends, including the group that introduced
me to Prince Harry, knew that I was a journalist and had gone to work for Katie
Nicholl at the Mail on Sunday.” The trial concluded on Tuesday, March 31, with
a judge yet to deliver a verdict.
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