Do we like Prince Harry?
Our score: 8 out of 10. Nothing harmful found in his words or acts, a real record on HIV and Pride, and one live charity row that keeps him off a nine.
The thing that explains Harry is his long fight with the tabloids. In December 2023 the High Court ruled he was a victim of phone hacking by Mirror Group Newspapers and awarded him about £140,000, and the publisher issued an unreserved apology. He had also co-founded Sentebale in 2006 to help young people with HIV in southern Africa.
This year the tabloid war went the other way. In July 2026 Justice Nicklin dismissed the claims he and six others brought against Associated Newspapers, the Daily Mail's publisher. The judge said suspicion alone wasn't enough, and the publisher says all 97 claims were thrown out. Harry and Baroness Doreen Lawrence put out a joint statement saying they had got neither justice nor accountability.
The messier story is Sentebale. Harry and Prince Seeiso of Lesotho quit as patrons in March 2025, and the charity's chair later accused Harry of bullying and harassment, which he has not admitted. The Charity Commission found no evidence of widespread bullying or misogyny but criticised both sides for airing it in public. In 2026 the charity sued Harry and a trustee for libel or slander over an alleged “coordinated adverse media campaign”, and his spokesperson says they “categorically reject these offensive and damaging claims”. Nothing has been decided.
On the harm check, we found nothing nasty. In June 2019 he and Meghan marked Pride Month on the Sussexes' official Instagram, the first royals to do so according to PinkNews, with a “love is love” tribute that followed groups like Stonewall and the Trevor Project. Our searches on climate, vaccines, migrants and racism turned up no harmful words or acts from him, so that's the whole list.
The good stuff is real. Sentebale grew out of his work on HIV, he took on the tabloids at a personal cost, and a court and a publisher both ended up agreeing hacking had happened. The Pride post was small, but it was a first for a royal.
So where does that leave him? He loses points only for a charity row that is still before the courts, and where you land depends on whether you trust the charity's account or his. We can't call that one yet, which is why he gets an asterisk and not a clean sheet.