By .
Prince Harry slammed the way tabloids have written about him over the years as he arrived at London’s High Court on Tuesday.
The Duke of Sussex’s phone hacking trial against the publisher of the Daily Mirror kicked off on Monday, but he wasn’t present.
Harry then made an appearance the following day after taking a flight from Los Angeles on Sunday after the birthday of his 2-year-old daughter, Lilibet.
READ MORE:
Prince Harry A No-Show On First Day Of Court Showdown With British Tabloid Publisher
The Duke — who stepped back as a senior member of the royal family alongside his wife Meghan Markle in March 2020 — is the first member of the British royals to testify in court in more than a century.
The case against the publisher of the Daily Mirror is the first of the prince’s several lawsuits against the media to go to trial, and one of three alleging tabloid publishers unlawfully snooped on him while competing for scoops on the royal family.
According to The Guardian, Harry said in a witness statement of how the tabloids shaped how other people viewed him: “You start off as a blank canvas while they work out what kind of person you are and what kind of problems and temptations you might have.
“They then start to edge you towards playing the role or roles that suit them best and which sells as many newspapers as possible, especially if you are the ‘spare’ to the ‘heir.’ You’re then either the ‘playboy prince,’ the ‘failure,’ the ‘drop out’ or, in my case, the ‘thicko,’ the ‘cheat,’ the ‘underage drinker,’ the ‘irresponsible drug taker,’ the list goes on.”
READ MORE:
Why Prince Harry And Meghan Markle’s Daughter Lilibet’s Birthday Was Not Publicly Acknowledged By Royal Family
He continued, “As a teenager and in my early twenties, I ended up feeling as though I was playing up to a lot of the headlines and stereotypes that they wanted to pin on me mainly because I thought that, if they are printing this rubbish about me and people were believing it, I may as well ‘do the crime,’ so to speak.
“It was a downward spiral, whereby the tabloids would constantly try and coax me, a ‘damaged’ young man, into doing something stupid that would make a good story and sell lots of newspapers. Looking back on it now, such behaviour on their part is utterly vile.
“I always felt as if the tabloids wanted me to be single, as I was much more interesting to them and sold more newspapers.”
During the court case, Harry said he felt paranoid around his own doctors amid the previous reporting about his broken thumb, as well as saying in his witness statement that he had to hide in the trunk of a car to avoid paparazzi at one point.
He shared, “I had just turned 20, and like most 20 year-olds, I wanted to go out and socialize. However, everywhere I went, the paparazzi seemed to turn up even though efforts were always being made to conceal where I was going.
“I had to walk out, hold my head high and just try to push past and get in the car. On rare occasions I even hid in the boot [trunk]….
“The paparazzi had me surrounded, their arms in my face. They don’t take photographs like you’d expect, it’s just their arms stretched out pushing a button, taking hundreds of photographs all at once with the flash in your face. I couldn’t even see where I was going. As I reached the car, I could hear taunting, I was being egged on for a reaction, knowing I’d been out and had a few drinks. A camera hit me across my nose as I was opening the door, I turned, grabbed the nearest camera to me and shoved it backwards.”