Prince Harry accuses tabloids of casting him as the 'thicko', the 'cheat' and the 'underage drinker'
By Natalie Oliveri|
T?he Duke of Sussex has admitted to "playing up to" tabloid stereotypes of him after being "cast into a specific role" within the royal family.
Prince Harry said he was labelled as "the 'thicko', the 'cheat', the 'underage drinker', the 'irresponsible drug taker'" as a teenager and into his early 20s.
The press, he said, "work out what kind of person you are" to sell newspapers "especially if you are the 'spare' to the 'heir'".
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?In his 55-page written statement, issued as he appeared at London's High Court on Tuesday, Prince Harry accused the tabloid press of casting members of the royal family into roles and creating an "alternative and distorted version of me".
"In my experience as a member of the royal family, each of us gets cast into a specific role by the tabloid press," he wrote.
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"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 'dropout' or, in my case, the 'thicko', the 'cheat', the 'underage drinker', the 'irresponsible drug taker', the list goes on.
"As a teenager and in my early 20s, I ended up feeling as though I was playing up to a lot of the headlines and stereotypes 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'.
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"It was a downward spiral, whereby the tabloids would constantly try and coax me into doing something stupid that would make a good story and sell lots of newspapers.
"Looking back, such behaviour on their part is utterly vile."
Prince Harry was questioned on whether he wrote his own witness statement.
Andrew Green KC, the lawyer for the Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), asked whether he was "just reading out something that has been drafted by your solicitors for you".
Harry replied: "This whole statement was written by me after a series of video calls with my legal team while I was in California.
"I'm saying this witness statement is mine, Mr Green."
Prince Harry is suing MGN ?for illegally obtaining information about him for articles, including phone hacking.
The duke alleges about 140 articles published between 1996 and 2010 contained information gathered using unlawful methods, and 33 of these have been selected to be considered in the court case.
The 38-year-old said he had "experienced hostility from the press" since he was born.?
?Green said he had sympathy for the duke, but denied journalists' actions were "all unlawful".
In his five-hour testimony, the duke was questioned by Green ?asking in detail about the sourcing of stories, and suggesting they were based on official statements or publicly available information and not hacking.
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