‘There’s a Line’: Royal Expert Reveals She Ghosted Prince Harry After He ‘Slid Into Her DMs’
Charlotte Griffiths is a U.K.-based journalist and the Editor at Large for the Daily Mail, where she specializes in royal commentary and celebrity news. She also had some interactions with Prince Harry after he reached out to her, but she didn’t allow it to last. Here’s why she said she cut off all communication with the Duke of Sussex.
Griffiths studied politics at the University of Leeds before joining The Mail group and has worked for the publication since 2008. She also serves as a regular TV commentator for outlets like GB News and Sky News and also appears on the Palace Confidential panel.
However, she gained even more widespread media attention during the privacy trial brought by Harry and six other high-profile claimants against Associated Newspapers Limited over allegations that journalists and private investigators had used unlawful methods to obtain information for stories from 1993 to 2011.
The case took an unexpected turn when Griffiths was named during evidence at the High Court, bringing the Duke of Sussex’s past social relationships and private messages into the spotlight. Harry’s case involved 14 articles that he believed had been produced using unlawfully obtained information. He argued that the alleged intrusion had caused considerable distress and affected his personal relationships.
Court disclosures revealed past social interactions via Facebook messages from 2011 to 2012 between Griffiths and the prince, which led to testimony regarding her reporting and boundaries as a royal-beat journalist. It was claimed that the duke messaged her under the name “Mr Mischief,” something he denied. But Griffiths was asked about her interactions with Harry and how the relationship they had actually ended.
On an episode of the Daily Expresso podcast, she told host JJ Anisiobi, “Well, I actually ghosted him … We had these Facebook messages -messages—and- and there were a few of them. I replied to a few and then in the end I just stopped replying because at that point I was really early on in my career and I still thought of myself as a university graduate with a friendship circle, and I was just like partying.”
Griffiths added, “I actually think I got a formal job at some point and I sort of realized—hold on a minute, I am actually a journalist. I ended up trailing off and thinking there’s a line—that it’s difficult. It’s just difficult to be a journalist and a friend of the royal circles. So I took a view that I would just let it drift.”
On July 7, 2026, the judge ruled against all seven claimants, finding that they had failed to prove their allegations of unlawful information gathering. The judge said suspicion, however understandable, was not sufficient evidence. He also accepted the denials of Associated Press journalists who provided lawful explanations for how disputed stories had been sourced.
Following the ruling, Prince Harry and fellow claimant Baroness Doreen Lawrence released a joint statement calling the decision a “complete and obvious whitewash.” The Duke of Sussex could face up to $20 million in legal fees.