The Bad Blood Between Piers Morgan And Prince Harry Explained

Piers Morgan and Prince Harry are locked in a nasty feud that, unfortunately, shows no signs of slowing down. The drama started after Harry went public with his romance with Meghan Markle. Morgan initially seemed fond of Meghan with whom he shared a brief friendship, but he eventually changed his tune. Unsurprisingly, his riff with Meghan now includes Prince Harry. 

While Morgan had framed his frustration with Harry and Meghan around their public grievances about their experience within the royal family, some have suggested that Morgan is simply angry that Meghan "ghosted" his friendship as she gained international fame, as he relayed during an interview on Ireland's "The Late Late Show" (via Business Insider.) Regardless of his motivations, Morgan has become one of their harshest, most unforgiving critics, complaining about nearly every aspect of Harry and Meghan's life, including their Netflix documentary. Morgan also infamously implied that Markle had lied about her suicide ideation while speaking with Oprah Winfrey in 2021. That comment, which received widespread criticism, ultimately led to Morgan resigning from his position on the British broadcast "Good Morning Britain."

Morgan continued to spew vitriol at Markle after landing a new job with The Sun. The media personality even gloated about Donald Trump's promise to offer Prince Harry zero support in the U.S., should he gain a second term as president. But this isn't the largest source of bad blood between Harry and Morgan by far.

Although the endless mocking and criticism from Piers Morgan probably hasn't earned him much grace in Prince Harry's eyes, the brunt of their bad blood stems from Harry's lawsuit against several British tabloids, whom he claims forfeited his privacy for content. As People detailed, as of December 2023, Prince Harry had four lawsuits running against several British publishing companies for illegally accessing his phone records to gather information for their stories. So far, Prince Harry has won his case against Mirror Group Newspapers, which owns a variety of publications, including the Daily Mirror, which Morgan edited for nearly a decade from 1995 to 2004. 

During the trial, in June 2023, Harry accused Morgan of attacking him to influence the outcome. "Unfortunately, as a consequence of me bringing my Mirror Group claim, both myself and my wife have been subjected to a barrage of horrific personal attacks and intimidation from Piers Morgan ... presumably in retaliation and in the hope that I will back down, before being able to hold him properly accountable for his unlawful activity ... " said Harry (via Newsweek).  

Prince Harry also name-dropped Morgan via his lawyer after winning the lawsuit. "The court had found that the Mirror Group's principal board directors, their legal department, senior executives, and editors such as Piers Morgan, clearly knew about or were involved in these illegal activities," said the statement (via Yahoo News UK).

Prince Harry can put at least one of his cases against the British media behind him, but he's since lost a separate lawsuit. Harry failed to convince the British courts that he should regain his tax-supported security team when he ventured there for family or work obligations. Shortly after, Piers Morgan took to YouTube to denounce Harry. "It was always a simple question of common sense, for me," said Morgan (via The Mirror). "Should a non-working member of the royal family ... receive the same taxpayer-funded protections as the rest of his family who do all that? The answer — self-evidently — is no."

Morgan also commented on the rumor that Prince Harry had offered to step up to help the royal family, as his father, King Charles III undergoes cancer treatment. "The claim that he is ready and willing to serve his country and his king is frankly an insult," said Morgan (via She Finds). "We all know what this is really about: Netflix is reportedly planning to pull the plug on Harry and Meghan's $100 million deal... Spotify canceled Meghan's dreary podcast. Without the royal links, the brutal reality is that Harry and Meghan are of no interest to anyone." 

Morgan also claimed that Harry and Meghan Markle "sold their soul" and suggested the king should retaliate. "The King should now return the favor and strip them of their tenuous titles and end this Sussex circus for good," concluded Morgan.