London, July 7, 2026
Prince Harry, musician Elton John, and five other public figures on Tuesday lost their class-action lawsuit against the publisher Associated Newspapers Limited at the London High Court.
Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), publisher of the tabloid newspapers "Daily Mail" and "The Mail on Sunday," had rejected the allegations from the outset. Now the court has ruled in favor of the defendants: In a 436-page written judgment, the judge concluded that the plaintiffs had failed to sufficiently substantiate their accusations of illegal information gathering. The lawsuit was therefore dismissed.
In addition to Prince Harry and Elton John, the group of plaintiffs also included his husband David Furnish as well as other prominent figures. They had accused the publisher of intercepting phone calls and voicemail messages for years and obtaining intimate documents such as medical records through private investigators in order to generate headlines.
The Allegations in Detail
In his testimony in February, Elton John described the publisher's practices as "abscheulich und jenseits jeglicher Standards menschlichen Anstandes." Prince Harry, for his part, said from the witness stand that he had been further persecuted for standing up for his wife: "Indem ich hier aufstehe und Stellung gegen sie beziehe, hat man mich weiter verfolgt."