Donald Trump Has Taken Prince Harry's Crown

By Jack Royston

Chief Royal Correspondent

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President Donald Trump's flurry of lawsuits in 2025 has filled a vacuum left by Prince Harry and Meghan Markle who previously filed more than 10 between them in three years.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex were once prolific litigants and between them have sued Associated Newspapers, the publisher of The Mail on Sunday, alone of four times.

However, they have now not filed an entirely new case since 2022 and all indications point toward them pursuing other strategies. Meanwhile, Trump has since 2024 sued ABC, CBS, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and others.

Mark Stephens, a U.K. based attorney for firm Howard Kennedy, told Newsweek: "Prince Harry may have flirted with the courts, but Donald Trump has moved in, redecorated and claimed squatters' rights.

"If litigation were a sport, Harry's still in the amateur league while Trump's playing in the Premiership. He's just more litigious. Harry's lawsuits are a bit like a royal garden party, occasional and well-mannered with, cucumber sandwiches. Trump's on the other hand, resemble a baker's buffet, endless, messy, burger-ridden, and everyone leaves feeling a little worse for wear."

Newsweek has approached the White House and representatives of the Duke of Sussex for comment.

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Why It Matters

Prince Harry and Meghan initially used the British courts against tabloid newspapers and paparazzi photographers who they felt had persecuted them. Trump has similarly sought to exert power over a media he argues has been too critical of him.

However, Harry and Meghan appear to have mostly turned their backs on their lawsuit era after chequered results and a bruising experience reputationally.

Trump's lawsuit era is heating up in his second term and he has won some out of court settlements from media organizations who had more to fight for than the outcome of the case itself. However, it is yet to be seen whether he will maintain his initial success.

Prince Harry's Lawsuits

A Sussex source told Newsweek: "Harry's litigation has been driven by real and quantifiable illegal action, whether it's hacking, blagging, these are all noted illegal activities. Whereas with Trump, it's, 'I don't like you, I'm going to sue you.'

"It's important to draw the distinction between someone who is truly shining a light on injustice and illegal practices versus somebody who just uses the courts to sue people because he doesn't like things."

Harry and Meghan began their courtroom journey in 2019 when the duchess sued The Mail on Sunday over a private letter she sent her father asking him to stop speaking to the media, which he passed to journalists. She won the case in 2021, even after the publisher appealed, but the experience was so stressful Harry feared it had contributed to a miscarriage in July 2020.

At the same time Meghan first filed that case, Harry also sued two British tabloid publishers, Mirror Group Newspapers and Rupert Murdoch's News Group Newspapers, on historic phone hacking allegations.

Harry settled with the Murdoch empire in January 2025 and beat the Mirror, winning £140,600 [around $180,000] in damages in December 2023 plus a later undisclosed settlement in relation to costs and other aspects not dealt with in the initial judgment.

Harry also settled a libel lawsuit against The Mail on Sunday in December 2020 and won an apology from the newspaper over a story wrongly suggesting he had not been in contact with the Royal Marines. He was Captain General of the Royal Marines from December 2017 until February 2021, when he returned his military appointments after stepping back from royal duties.

And it was not just newspapers. A privacy case against Splash News and Pictures over photos of Meghan walking with their son Prince Archie in a public park in Canada forced the paparazzi agency into bankruptcy in 2021.

And they sued a U.S. based paparazzi agency, X17, at court in Los Angeles in 2020 and won an apology over photos of Archie playing in the private grounds of Tyler Perry's Beverly Hills mansion, which were taken with a drone and published in German magazine Bunte.

Not all of his cases have gone so well, though. Another libel suit against the Mail in 2022 was scrapped by the prince part way through leaving him liable to pay costs.

And he lost two judicial review lawsuits filed against the British Government over the removal of his police protection team when he moved to America. He also lost an appeal in May.

Harry has one more case outstanding, a historic phone hacking lawsuit against the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday. The publisher vigorously denies the allegations and the trial is scheduled for the New Year.

Beyond the police security appeal, though, Harry has filed no new cases since 2022 and appears to have changed stance in his media strategy, with his team far more engaged in 2025 than they have been in previous years. The Sussex team, once banned from communicating with certain British newspapers, invited the U.K. press pack to report in person on his recent visit to Britain in September.

Donald Trump's Lawsuits

Donald Trump has sued news organizations in the past but since 2024 has had some success in forcing out of court settlements, including from ABC.

The president filed a suit against ABC News and George Stephanopoulos for defamation over on-air comments about the lawsuit brought by magazine columnist E Jean Carroll alleging sexual assault by Trump.

A jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse but not rape, the BBC reported. Star anchor Stephanopoulos had wrongly suggested Trump had been found liable for rape. The network said it regretted the remarks and agreed to pay $15 million toward a future presidential foundation and museum.

In July, Paramount offered a $16 million payout toward Trump's future presidential library to settle a lawsuit he brought over a CBS edit of an interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump's Democrat rival in the 2024 election. No acknowledgment of regret or apology was included in the deal.

The suit, filed a month before the election, alleged an "attempt to tip the scales in favor of the Democratic Party as the heated 2024 Presidential Election—which President Trump is leading—approaches its conclusion."

More recently, he has threatened the BBC with a defamation suit over a Panorama documentary that stitched together various comments made by Trump in the buildup to the January 6 Capitol siege.

The BBC said in a statement earlier this month: "We accept that our edit unintentionally created the impression that we were showing a single continuous section of the speech, rather than excerpts from different points in the speech, and that this gave the mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action."

Trump vowed to sue for at least $1 billion while the BBC has said it will fight any case.

Other suits brought by the president have involved The Wall Street Journal over a Jeffrey Epstein story and a New York Times case in which the judge rejected Trump's initial complaint in September.

Trump refiled the suit, which related to reporting and a book by two Times journalists that the president's lawyers argue is defamatory.

A New York Times spokesperson told Variety: "As we said when this was first filed and again after the judge’s ruling to strike it: this lawsuit has no merit."

"One of the things about Donald Trump is he uses his court cases as a transactional basis for closing a deal," Stephens said. "It's the art of the deal. The irony, I think, is that Trump's losing streak in court is starting to look less like bad luck and more like a precedent. And at this rate, the only thing he'll win is the award for the most frequent litigant.

"If you look at the ABC and CBS claims, he's leveraging through the courts an ability to procure settlements, which, any real courtroom wouldn't give him. And that's the mistake that he's making with the BBC, I think. He doesn't have the same leverage that he did over ABC and CBS, which were in the middle of very, very expensive and profitable commercial arrangements, which needed federal approval."

Of course, he has been involved in many more lawsuits if cases involving his administration are included but Newsweek has primarily looked at personal, reputational lawsuits with the media.

Do you have a question about King Charles III and Queen Camilla, Prince William and Princess Kate, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry, or their family that you would like our experienced royal correspondents to answer? Email [email protected]. We'd love to hear from you.

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