Prickly, sulky — Prince Harry’s courtroom image problem

Helen Coffey, The Independent

Courtroom artists’ portraits are rarely what you’d call “flattering”. When it’s a regular Joe Bloggs entering the witness box, there’s no real frame of reference for the casual viewer. When it’s an already-familiar face, however, it becomes far more obvious that the hastily rendered representation has about as much in common with the actual person as a cut-price caricature done by a down-on-his-luck street artist. One who, presumably, gets off on ritually humiliating his subjects.

It's probably quite a knock for the old self-esteem — so pity Prince Harry, whose latest pastel-sketched profile after his appearance in the High Court is unlikely to make it onto his wife’s painfully overcurated Insta grid anytime soon. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a few choice ones might include “haggard” (the eyes weighed down with not just bags but veritable suitcases); “angry” (the forehead etched with deep frown lines); “unkempt” (the hair, both facial and head).

But perhaps most damning of all is the impossible-to-ignore suggestion of a balding patch on top — a few cannily placed daubs of flesh colour beneath wiry strokes of auburn conveying the dreaded “thinning out” that relentlessly pursues men of a certain age with all the tenacity of the Nazgul hunting the one ring across Middle-earth. Alas, the one-time poster boy for the follicularly challenged is finally going the way of his elder brother; one can only outrun genetics for so long.

It all feels a bit Samson and Delilah-coded, tbh. Which doesn’t bode well for Harry’s current battle against the Daily Mail publisher, Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), his third legal claim against a newspaper group to date. Is Meghan the Delilah in this scenario? Is the Duke’s power waning in tandem with his hairline? Only time will tell, as he wraps up giving evidence as one of seven high-profile claimants accusing ANL of “grave breaches of privacy” over 20 years.

Harry has described this latest court case as, simply, a “horrible experience”. But a rogue artist’s impression isn’t the only image problem the beleaguered royal is currently contending with. Here are a few more choice words, these ones flung out by court reporters rather than captured by an unsympathetic sketch: “terse”, “tense”, and “more defensive than the defence”.

He “prickled” and “bristled” and “sulked” on the stand; he described the idea that he shouldn’t be entitled to a private life as “disgusting” and railed against the idea that the private lives of himself and those close to him should, in fact, be “commercialised”.

I can sympathise. After all, nobody should have their private life monetised by the media, should they? Nobody should, say, have the ins and outs of their deeply personal family drama and dating and relationship history constantly written about and televised for all to see? Like in 2019, when ITV followed the Sussexes’ every move as they toured around Africa at the request of... oh yes, the Sussexes. Fair play – amid a swirling mass of lies and negative stories in the press, Harry and Meghan wanted to set the record straight, once and for all.

Well, twice and for all: in 2021 came a high-profile interview with Oprah Winfrey, swiftly followed by Harry and Meghan, a six-part Netflix documentary series as part of the Sussexes’ multi-year deal with the streaming platform (rumoured to be worth around $100m). OK, OK, thrice and for all, m’lud. Lest we forget Spare, Harry’s scorching, no-holds-barred autobiography, which finally — finally! — allowed him to speak his unfiltered truth (and incidentally make a reported £16m).

At long last, the Sussexes’ side of the story had been laid bare from every conceivable angle and put to rest! That record was well and truly set straight — they’d practically used a spirit level — and the Duke could stop talking about his hallowed and sacred private life for, oh, at least five minutes... Once he’d squeezed in a few teeny-tiny deeply personal interviews with ITV, CBS and ABC (demonstrating a level of oversharing normally reserved for a night out with the girls after a bottle of sauv blanc and ill-advised 3am tequila shots).

No point in “breaking your silence” if you’re not going to do it multiple times a year across numerous media platforms, after all. But spare a thought for the real victim in all of this: Meghan. Harry broke down in tears at the end of his testimony in the witness box on Wednesday as he recounted his wife’s abject suffering and the “misery” she has had to endure. Yes, she may put a brave face on things as she posts glossy, artfully framed snaps on social media of her perfect slice of Californian family life, or presents episodes of wonderfully beige lifestyle magazine show With Love, Meghan from her idyllic Montecito home (not her actual home.)

But we all know that the curse of “Instagram versus reality” can hit even the most A-list of A-listers – just as the curse of male pattern baldness can. No matter the verdict, that’s one image problem that can’t be overturned.