For generations, the British royal family has existed in a symbiosis with the tabloid press.
Royal stories sell papers, and the press offices within the palace work alongside a select group of media organisations to sustain the intrigue into the lives of the royals.
But Prince Harry has decided the costs vastly outweigh the benefits, engaging in a torrid battle against the paparazzi that breaks the unofficial royal code.
On Wednesday, the Duke of Sussex alleged that he and his wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, were pursued by paparazzi through New York in a "nearly catastrophic" car chase.
That allegation comes as he prepares to give evidence in a civil case brought against the Mirror publisher over unlawful information gathering dating back to the 1990s, however Prince Harry's exposure to the frenzied press began well before then.
Diana's paparazzi car chase
His mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, was subject to fervent public scrutiny, intensifying all the more in her attempts to shield her family from the spotlight.
Try as she might to protect her sons from the tabloid press, Prince Harry said he recalls the treatment she was subjected to.
"Back in my mum's day, it was physical harassment … You know, cameras in your face. Following you, chasing you," he said in a Netflix series about his broken relationship with the royal family.
Following her split from then-Prince Charles, tabloid front pages routinely featured paparazzi pictures tracking Princess Diana's every move, obsessing over her new relationships, including the final one with Dodi Fayed.
The fever reached a tragic crescendo when, on August 31, 1997, the driver of the car transporting Princess Diana through Paris lost control and collided with a pillar in the Pont de L'Alma tunnel, killing the princess, Fayed and the driver.
Their car was being pursued by paparazzi.
Reflecting on the incident 20 years later, Prince Harry told the BBC that, even in death, his mother was not spared the click of the cameras.
"I think one of the hardest things to come to terms with is the fact that the people that chased her into the tunnel were the same people that were taking photographs of her while she was still dying on the back seat of the car," he said.
Delivering her eulogy, her younger brother Charles Spencer reflected on the paparazzi's treatment of her as a "hunt".
"Of all the ironies about Diana, perhaps the greatest was this: A girl given the name of the ancient goddess of hunting was, in the end, the most hunted person of the modern age," he said.
Fears of 'history repeating'
Prince Harry attributes his break-up with the girlfriend of his 20s, Chelsy Davy, to the tireless whirlwind of paparazzi attention on their relationship.
"There was no down time or escape. It felt like we were under 24-hour surveillance," he said in his witness statement in his current case against News Group Newspapers (NGN), separate from his case against the Mirror publisher.
"I remember that, whenever Chelsy and I went on a trip to a small island off the coast of Mozambique, to try and get away from all the madness and enjoy some peace and quiet, journalists and photographers from NGN and the other tabloids would literally turn up and book into the hotel before we got there."
The invasive interest of the press, he alleges, "caused great challenges" in their relationship and led Ms Davy to decide that "a royal life was not for her".
When Prince Harry began dating Meghan in 2016, the tabloids were once again out in force.
The pair were dogged by paparazzi for years, as Harry had been much of his life. However, in 2019, Meghan decided to take legal action to deter them.
In a statement supporting his wife's intention to sue the Daily Mail publisher, Harry said he feared "history repeating itself".
"Because my deepest fear is history repeating itself. I've seen what happens when someone I love is commoditised, to the point that they are no longer treated or seen as a real person," his statement said.
"I lost my mother and now I watch my wife falling victim to the same powerful forces."
Seeking privacy in the US
In 2019, Harry and Meghan went on holiday to an island in Canada, a trip very few knew about.
In his book, Spare, Harry spoke of initial feelings of paranoia that they had been followed.
"We ventured out timidly, drove down the road into the nearest village, walked along the pavement like people in a horror movie. Where will the attack come from? Which direction? But it didn't happen. People didn't freak. They didn't stare. They didn't reach for their iPhones," he wrote.
"They gave us space, while also managing to make us feel welcome, with a kind smile, a wave. They made us feel like part of a community. They made us feel normal."
Six weeks later, however, the Daily Mail caught on and published their location, triggering an onslaught.
"Within hours the boats arrived," Harry wrote.
"Each boat bristled with telephoto lenses, arrayed like guns along the decks, and every lens was aimed at our windows."
It was this incident that sparked the idea of leaving the UK.
"Brief as it was, that taste of freedom had got us thinking. What if life could be like that all the time? … Free from the British press, free from the drama, free from the lies. But also free from the supposed 'public interest' that was used to justify the frenzied coverage of us."
In 2020, the pair made the decision to step down as senior royals and leave the UK.
They settled in a celebrity neighbourhood of California, in a mansion patrolled by private security.
Their neighbours include the likes of Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom, Ellen DeGeneres and Portia De Rossi, and Oprah Winfrey.
Airing royal secrets
In a 2021 sit-down with Oprah Winfrey, Harry revealed the "invisible contract" between the tabloid press and the royal family.
He alleged his family systematically plied the tabloids for favourable coverage, and Meghan said she suffered mental ill health as a result of the negative coverage.
The following year, the couple released a Netflix series detailing, among other insider secrets, the workings of the royal press offices.
The prince alleged it was common practice for the royal press offices to deflect interest from their assigned member of the family by leaking information about another member.
He said Meghan was a particular target.
"To see another woman in my life, who I love, go through this feeding frenzy, that's hard, because it is, basically, the hunter versus the prey," Harry said.
"The pain and suffering of women marrying into this institution, this feeding frenzy. I was terrified — I didn't want history to repeat itself."
In January 2023, the series was followed up with a memoir from the prince.
In his book, he described the media as "a dreadful mob of dweebs and crones and cut-rate criminals and clinically diagnosable sadists along Fleet Street".
He said he'd developed a trauma response to the paparazzi's cameras.
"I didn't love waking to find a photo of myself on the front page of a tabloid, but what I really couldn't bear was the sound of the photo being taken in the first place," he wrote.
"That click, that terrible noise, from over my shoulder or behind my back or within my peripheral vision, had always triggered me, had always made my heart race, but after Sandhurst, it sounded like a gun cocking or a blade being notched open.
"And then, even a little worse, a little more traumatising, came that blinding flash."
Legal action against tabloids
Prince Harry is engaged in a number of active lawsuits against different publishers of tabloid press.
One of those publishers, the Mirror Group, apologised to Harry over unlawful information gathering, but denied his allegations that senior executives and editorial staff were involved in and covered up the practice.
In March, Harry attended court in person as the lawyers for Associated Newspaper, publisher of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, sought to throw out a case brought by him and other high-profile figures including singer Elton John.
He is also pursuing a phone-hacking case against Rupert Murdoch's News Group Newspapers (NGN), which has promised to rigorously fight the claims.
In undertaking his multiple legal battles, Harry said it was his duty to expose "criminality" committed by the tabloids on behalf of those without the same resources as he has.
