Reading Time: 2 minutes
Well, this is a rough week for Prince Harry.
On Tuesday, the court dealt him a major blow in a privacy lawsuit.
Now, Harry could be on the hook for a sizable fortune in legal fees.
Is he broke? Let’s look at what we know.
The judge dismissed every claim in the lawsuit
People all around the world hate The Daily Mail. It goes with the territory of being a fairly notorious British tabloid.
However, few hate it as much as Harry and his fellow litigants.
Elton John, David Furnish, Sadie Frost, Elizabeth Hurley, and Baroness Doreen Lawrence all sued the notorious tabloid for invasion of privacy.
Harry has won real victories in the fight for privacy. In 2023, against The Daily Mirror. and in 2025, against The Sun.
Tragically, this week, a British judge dismissed the lawsuit against The Daily Mail, citing insufficient evidence on the part of the litigants.
In the aftermath, the Duke of Sussex and Baroness Lawrence put out a joint statement.
“It is a complete and obvious whitewash, but sadly not altogether unexpected,” the pair acknowledged with resignation.
“However, the lengths to which the court has gone to exonerate the Mail is as shocking as it is totally unwarranted,” they then observed.
According to the court’s ruling (the ruling is hundreds of pages in length, so we may be missing some nuance here), they simply didn’t have an obvious smoking gun.
In the past, Harry had evidence such as admissions of guilt. The court didn’t feel that the litigants could prove The Daily Mail‘s culpability.
How much did all of this cost?
In the wake of this bitter setback, much of the attention has been on Harry — and how much this lawsuit must have cost.
Reportedly, this entire miserable ordeal may have cost between $53 – 67 million.
One would think, from some of the gleeful tabloid coverage, that Harry was the only litigant.
People have snarkily joked that Meghan Markle will need to sell a lot more jam, a reference to her successful As Ever product line.
But we should note that Harry was not the only litigant. Don’t ignore Sir Elton John and Elizabeth Hurley like that.
Some are gleefully predicting that Harry, who is worth tens of millions, is now “broke.”
But actually, no, that’s not the truth. At least, there is no reason to believe so.
Not only is he one of multiple litigants, but some have speculated that Harry and his co-defendants are insured for just an occasion such as this.
We cannot confirm that. We also cannot deny that.
Harry’s made headlines around the world for striking back in court after years of harassment and invasions of privacy by some truly despicable enterprises. This time, however, things went the other way.
