Prince Harry has had a shocking week — and now may need to rely on pals like Elton John to help pay millions of dollars in legal fees, Page Six can reveal.
The renegade royal’s UK trip this week had descended into a humiliating farce, but there was a bright spot on Friday: After days of whispers and briefings from Sussex sources and royal insiders, Harry finally got his wish and met King Charles and Queen Camilla with his wife, Meghan Markle, and their children.
Finally, Harry made a bolt to Highgrove, his father’s country estate, where Charles and Camilla were reunited with the children for the first time in four years.
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Markle, 44, brought the kids over from Portugal, where they had been staying.
It was a much-needed win.
Royal insiders in the UK described this past week as “chaotic” for the Duke of Sussex, whose reps announced on Monday morning that he had accepted an invitation to stay at Buckingham Palace — only for the palace to publicly rescind the offer moments later.
We’re told that Harry had been personally dealing with his father’s staff and first told them, on Saturday, he would not need a room, then changed his mind hours later. The palace said he had missed their requested deadline.
One insider said the decision was partly operational, as there was a lack of time to bring household staff into the residence, which is currently under renovation — but admitted palace courtiers were worried it would be constitutionally problematic for the king if Harry stayed there on the same day he lost his court case against Associated Newspapers Ltd.
On Tuesday, he lost his privacy case against the publisher of the Daily Mail— and could face up to $20 million (£15m) in legal fees, which, sources told Page Six, he does not have.
Harry, 41, and his fellow claimants, who sued ANL over allegations of unlawful information gathering in stories about them, will have just 14 days to pay the fees after a judge finalizes costs later this month, even if they ask for the right to appeal.
“The people funding the case will likely help Harry with costs,” a legal source familiar with the case said. The estate of the late Formula 1 tycoon Max Mosley, along with campaign group Hacked Off, accused of attempting to undermine press freedom, helped fund the claimants’ research.
But the legal source also feels an old friend of Harry’s mother, Princess Diana, might step up: “Elton John could also well help Harry out. They’re extremely close.”
The singer, who performed for the Harry and Markle at their 2018 wedding, has a personal fortune of $640 million, according to the UK Sunday Times Rich List.
We have reached out to reps for Elton John for comment.
“Harry definitely doesn’t have the money for it,” revealed a well-placed insider, adding that Markle will “likely be very furious about the fees. She did not want him to [pursue the case].”
A Sussex rep declined to comment on this allegation.
It all comes at a time when the couple’s earning power is in question.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex pay around $3 million a year on security, and Page Six is told they have two mortgages on their $14.5 million home in Montecito, California.
They have lost their exclusive production deal with Netflix, but still have a first-look deal with the streamer under their Archewell production banner. As of Friday, two scripted movies they are producing, based on the hit books “Meet Me By The Lake” and “The Wedding Date,” have been listed as “in development” for over a year.
So is their Netflix feature based on British Army Major Adam Jowett’s memoir “No Way Out: The Searing True Story of Men Under Siege,” although, as an industry source pointed out, that project was only announced in May.
Despite reports, we’re told the couple is not making a documentary to commemorate the 30-year anniversary of Diana’s death next year.
In March 2021, Harry told CBS that he had been forced to subsist on the money his mother left him after being cut off financially from his family in March 2020, when the Sussexes stepped down as working royals and moved to the US.
“I’ve got what my mum left me, and without that, we would not have been able to do this,” Harry said.
As we reported, Markle has become the main breadwinner as Harry focuses on his philanthropy. But her lifestyle brand, As Ever, remains limited — with just 15 products sold in various incarnations. Sales figures for the private company are not available.
The loss of a big court case is precisely what they did not need.
Harry signed up to the legal action with celebrities including Elton John, Elizabeth Hurley, and Sadie Frost, the movie producer, ex-wife of Jude Law, along with Baroness Doreen Lawrence, the mother of Stephen Lawrence, a black British teenager who was murdered in a racist attack in London in 1993.
They all claimed to have been victims of Mail journalists who allegedly used unlawful methods to obtain private information. Harry told the court Markle’s life had been made an “absolute misery” by the British press.
However, judge Matthew Nicklin was scathing in his decision, stating “Suspicion, even understandable suspicion, is not proof” and finding that the stories could have originated from legitimate sources.
The UK Times reported Thursday that the litigation insurers for Harry’s case could now pull the plug on their $20 million (£15m) insurance, meaning he and the other claimants could be liable for the cost.
“Associated Newspapers can choose who they proceed against [for costs], and who is liable to pay,” Colin Campbell, a former costs judge who sat in the High Court at the Royal Courts of Justice in London and is now a consultant at the specialist costs law firm Kain Knight, told Page Six.
“They can choose who has the most money and who will be easiest to get payment from … It could be Elton John, Prince Harry, and Elizabeth Hurley … they don’t have to go to each claimant separately.”
However, these claimants have the right to get money back from the other people involved in the case.
ANL has said that the overall costs during the litigation amounted to £50 million, but it’s up to presiding judge Nicklin to decide the final costs.
