Prince Harry.Photo: Chris Jackson - Pool/Getty
A private investigator said he was part of a “ruthless” media culture that “robbed"Prince Harryof a normal life.
Gavin Burrows apologized for his previous behavior in BBC’sThe Princes and the Press, a documentary exploringPrince HarryandPrince William’s relationships with the media.
“I was basically part of a group of people who robbed him of his normal teenage years,” BurrowsadmittedaboutPrince Harry, now 37, adding that the media culture in the early 2000s “ruthless.”
The private investigator said editors described Harry as “the new Diana,” referring to his mother Princess Diana who died in a 1997 car crash. In trying to uncover stories aboutPrince Harry, Burrows targeted the royal’s former girlfriend Chelsy Davy, whom the royal dated until 2011 after dating on and off for six years.
“There was a lot of voicemail hacking going on, there was a lot of surveillance work on her phones, on her comms. Chelsy would brag to her friends when she was going to see him,” he said.
Chelsy Davy and Prince Harry.Indigo/Getty Images
In addition to finding out about her ex-boyfriends, Burrows also confessed to digging into Davy’s medical records, including whether she had sexually transmitted diseases or abortions.
Burrows apologized, saying he was “very sorry” and that he acted this way “because I was greedy, I was into my cocaine, and I was living in a fake state of grandeur.”
Roya Nikkhah ofThe Sunday Timesappeared in the documentary, sharing that the attention onPrince Harry’s girlfriends was too much for them to handle.
“When you are dating or considering marrying a member of the royal family, the scrutiny you endure is enormous,” the editor said. “Harry’s previous relationships with Chelsy Davy and Cressida Bonas — a part of why neither of those went all the day was because neither of them wanted to endure that level of media scrutiny.”
She added, “At that point, he was in the 30s. A lot of his friends were getting married and having families, and he was very concerned that that might elude him because he might not be able to find someone who could handle that.”
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.John Lamparski/Getty
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After news broke in 2016 ofPrince Harry’s relationship withMeghan Markle, heconfirmed the newswith a groundbreaking statement condemning the “wave of abuse and harassment” towards Meghan.
The couple married in May 2018 (with both Davy and Bonas in attendance), and they now have two children. They relocated to California last year after stepping down as senior members of the royal family.
Harry recently spoke out against misinformationon the Internet, opening up about his own experience.
Part two ofThe Princes and the Pressairs on November 29.
source: people.com
