The private investigator for Prince Harry has apologized for “robbing” him of normal adolescent life. In the BBC documentary “The Princes and the Press,” Gavin Burrows admitted to targeting the Prince of Sussex’s ex-girlfriend, Chelsy Davy, saying he was part of the harsh media culture in the early 2000s.
“I was effectively part of a group of people that robbed him of his natural teenage years,” Burrows stated of Prince Harry, now 37. He also described the period’s media environment as “ruthless,” suggesting that investigators would go to any length to learn more about the young prince.
Burrows said that editors referred to Prince Harry as “the new Diana,” a reference to his late mother, Princess Diana, who has been the target of constant press attention since her engagement to Prince Charles was announced. Diana died in a car accident while being pursued by a gang of reporters in 1997.
When discussing how they tried to dig out information about the young prince at the time, Burrows described how he targeted Davy, whom Prince Harry dated for six years until 2011, to raise discussion about his private life.
“There was a lot of voicemail hacking going on,” Burrows said. “There was a lot of surveillance work on her phones, on her comms.” “When she was going to see him, Chelsy would brag to her friends,” he claimed.
As per Washingtonnewsday, the private investigator also dredged out Davy’s medical information, including if she had abortions or sexually transmitted infections. Burrows issued an apology and indicated that he was “extremely sorry” for his behavior in the documentary at the time. He admitted, “I was selfish, I was addicted to cocaine, and I was living in a false sense of grandeur.”
According to Roya Nikkhah of The Sunday Times, who also appears in the video, the attention bestowed on Prince Harry’s girlfriends at the time was too much for them to handle. “When you’re dating or thinking about marrying a member of the royal family, you’re under a lot of scrutinies,” she said. “A part of why neither of Harry’s prior relationships with Chelsy Davy and Cressida Bonas went all day was because neither of them wanted to withstand that kind of media attention,” she continued.
Prince Harry revealed his relationship with Meghan Markle in 2016 with a bold statement condemning the “wave of abuse and harassment” directed at his new girlfriend.
