Prince Harry, British celebs may owe Daily Mail $45 million in legal fees

Theresa Braine, New York Daily News on Jul 29, 2026

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The dismissal of Prince Harry’s lawsuit against U.K. news outlets could leave him and several other British celebs collectively on the hook for as much as $45 million in their opponents’ legal fees, according to reports.

The Duke of Sussex wasn’t the only one accusing Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), which publishes the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday, of using illegally obtained information in stories about them. He’d been joined in the 2022 lawsuit by singer Elton John and husband David Furnish, actresses Elizabeth Hurley and Sadie Frost, anti-racism campaigner Baroness Doreen Lawrence, and a politician, Sir Simon Hughes, according to Newsweek.

Harry testified back in January that the newspapers’ use of private investigators in particular had ratcheted his paranoia up to traumatic levels, strained his personal relationships and terrified his loved ones.

On July 7, Justice Matthew Nicklin said the articles the claimants submitted as proof did not seem to contain unlawfully gathered material and dismissed the lawsuit in a 436-page decision. This left the accusers potentially liable for their opponents’ legal fees.

A hearing began Wednesday to determine whether and how much the claimants would have to pay. ANL said it had spent $45.8 million prepping and litigating, a figure the claimants’ lawyer deemed “eye-watering” and more in line with levying punishment than reimbursing costs, Reuters reported.

The publisher’s lawyer maintained that Harry’s initial denunciation of the judge’s ruling as a “complete and obvious whitewash” added to the tab. The claimants are insured up to $23.4 million, according to People. The hearing is set to continue Thursday.

Harry prevailed against the Mirror Newspaper Group in 2023, when a London court determined that its publications had illegally obtained information about him via phone hacking. In 2025, he settled a suit against Rupert Murdoch’s Sun and affiliated newspapers that included damages and apologies.

His wife, Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle, was symbolically victorious in a previous lawsuit against ANL in 2021, receiving $1.36 and front-page public apologies from both its newspapers for excerpting a personal letter she had sent to her father in 2018.

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