Prince Harry used to be fun. It is easy to forget this given the Meghan-Montecito-highly litigious incarnation of the Duke of Sussex, but there was a reason why, for many years, he was the most popular and accessible member of ‘the Firm’. Less stiff than his brother and considerably less cerebral than his father, he conveyed a sense that he was Harry Wales, the royal you’d want to go for a pint with. Or, as we now know, to have ‘movie snuggles’ with journalists, with whom he could complain about being ‘hungover again for the third day running’.
The messages between Harry and the journalist Charlotte Griffiths are quite the eye-opener
Yes, the messages between Harry and the journalist Charlotte Griffiths, which have now been disclosed to the High Court as part of the Duke’s privacy claim against the Daily Mail publisher Associated Newspapers Limited, are quite the eye-opener. Although there is no suggestion from either party that there was any romantic involvement between the two, the tenor on both sides in the correspondence from late 2011 and early 2012 is heavily flirtatious.
Harry signs off his messages ‘Mwah’ with several kisses and has a solicitous (some might say almost over-solicitous) interest in Griffiths’s wellbeing, asking ‘hope work isn’t too dull wherever u are’ and calling her ‘sugar’. He also displays an endearing irreverence towards activities that are now taken deadly seriously (‘had to make polite conversation with strange people at a dinner last night. begging them for money for charity! Really fun.not’) and suggests that Griffiths was part of his close social circle, writing ‘l’ve been seriously busy since I last saw u but plan on getting back in the mix for Feb! U best be around .. ?’
To any neutral observer, these messages are on the flirty, even intense side of friendliness, but there is a clear closeness on both sides – and Griffiths’s reciprocal messages make it clear that this is an easy, natural rapport, referring to mutual friends and shared activities. Under normal circumstances, they would be unexceptional. However, their presence as evidence in this particular case belies Harry’s statement in the witness box that he and Griffiths barely knew each other, that they met once at a mutual friend’s house and that he cut off contact immediately the next day when he realised that she was a journalist, even though his remarks were tempered with ‘Not as far as I’m aware’ and ‘I have no idea’.
Griffiths, now the Mail on Sunday’s editor-at-large, was then working as a diary editor: a job that requires a certain high tolerance for socialising, and all of the obligations that go along with that. Inevitably, there are parts of this rapport that can seem artificial or contrived, especially when celebrities or royalty are involved, but the fact that the correspondence appears to have been initiated by Harry (‘It’s H, in case u were confused by name and picture!!! X’) who revelled in the nickname of ‘Mr Mischief’ does not suggest that he was a reluctant participant in this particular friendship. It is true that he may not have known precisely what her job was; it is equally true that Google existed in 2011 and that if he had had the slightest concern about a potentially compromising relationship with a journalist, he could easily have cut it off. As, indeed, he said he did.
It is impossible to know what the outcome of the privacy trial will be. The case has now concluded and Mr Justice Nicklin will be making his judgement at a later date. It could well go in the claimants’ favour, which would be a catastrophic result for Associated Newspapers. The losing side will not only incur a vast financial burden – cases like this are not cheap – but destroy reputations at a stroke. If the younger Harry, playfully talking about ‘movie snuggles’ with young women, might have anticipated the difficulties and fuss that have now occurred, he might well have thought twice about sending that Facebook message to Griffiths. But on the other hand, he used to be fun. And look how that has ended up.