Prince Harry's friendly texts with reporter emerge amid privacy lawsuit – USA Today

Prince Harry‘s ongoing privacy lawsuit against a major U.K. tabloid publisher has opened his friendly decade-old messages with a journalist up for scrutiny.
The 41-year-old Duke of Sussex started exchanging Facebook messages with former Mail on Sunday diary editor Charlotte Griffiths in 2011 and allegedly sent friendly communications such as “[you] missed a good party” and “I would have been … drinking [you] under the table,” as reported by The Telegraph and The Times on March 31.
Harry, who acknowledged in court that they had met at a party hosted by movie producer Arthur Landon, previously distanced himself from Griffiths, reportedly testifying in January that he’d “cut contact” upon finding out she was a journalist.
“I had no idea that she was a journalist at that time,” King Charles‘ younger son said, per The Times. “I met her once at a weekend, and then the next day, after I’d left, after the weekend had finished, I found out who she was. I had words with my friend and that was that.”
The alleged communications between Harry and Griffiths, now the newspaper’s editor-at-large, appeared to show a familiarity between the two amid a High Court case in which the prince claims the media company used unlawful means to obtain information that was used for reporting on himself and six other public figures.
“I’ve been seriously busy since I last saw [you] but plan on getting back in the mix for Feb! [You] best be around,” Harry allegedly messaged Griffiths in January 2012, according to The Telegraph. He also purportedly wrote, “Miss our movie snuggles.”
USA TODAY has reached out to Prince Harry’s representatives for comment.
The exchanges were brought to light as the nearly 11-week trial concluded arguments on March 31. Judge Matthew Nicklin has said he will work on the case after “a short break over Easter” but warned the parties that “judgment will take some time.”
The case in London’s High Court was initiated in October 2022, when Harry, Elton John and his husband David Furnish, and actors Liz Hurley and Sadie Frost, among other notable U.K. personalities sued Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday publisher Associated Newspapers Limited.
The plaintiffs claims that journalists working for the company commissioned private investigators between 1993 and 2011 allegedly hacked voicemail messages, tapped landline phones and obtained confidential information, such as flight details and medical records, by deception – known as “blagging.”
Associated Newspapers has denied all claims
Associated’s lawyer, Antony White, has argued that the publisher’s journalists had ties to his “leaky” social circle. Harry, in a combative exchange in January, denied the claims when he took the witness stand.
“For the avoidance of doubt, I am not friends with any of these journalists, and I never have been,” he said. “My social circles were not leaky. I want to make that absolutely clear.”
The lawsuit is among several Harry has levied against media outlets over the years. When he took the stand in January, the Duke of Sussex gave emotional testimony, reportedly saying, “I think it is fundamentally wrong to have to put all of us through this again when all we were asking for is an apology and some accountability.”
He added, “It is a horrible experience, and the worst of it is that by sitting up here and taking a stand against them … they continue to come after me.”
In 2025, Harry settled a lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch’s U.K. newspaper group for a total of more than 10 million pounds ($13.2 million), winning an apology and an admission for the first time that private investigators working for the Sun newspaper had acted unlawfully, including targeting his late mother, Princess Diana.
Contributing: Michael Holden, Reuters, and Taijuan Moorman, USA TODAY

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