As the second son to Princess Diana and then-Prince Charles, Prince Harry has been in the spotlight for much of his life. Princess Diana did what she could to help ensure that her sons had as much of a regular upbringing as she could given the circumstances, and that included trying to protect their privacy when they were out and about in the world. There’s a clip in the Netflix docuseries “Harry & Meghan” of Princess Diana approaching paparazzi while she was on a Switzerland ski trip with her sons, asking them to “Please leave. As a parent, could I ask you to respect my children’s space?” And that was hardly the only time that Princess Diana and her sons had to deal with the media.

The complicated relationship between the royal family, the paparazzi, and the media is taking center stage during the trial for the lawsuit that Prince Harry and over 100 other individuals have filed against Mirror Group Newspapers, which publishes the Daily Mirror. And while Harry was a no-show on day one of the trial against Mirror Group Newspapers — and Harry’s absence left the judge unimpressed — he took the stand to face questions about the alleged illegal practices of the British media. These are the most stunning revelations from his testimony.

Prince Harry Takes Aim At UK Press For Causing His ‘Downward Spiral’

On the second day of the trial, Prince Harry took the stand to answer questions from the opposition’s lawyer. He outlined what it was like dealing with the press publishing stories about him that were negative and one-sided as he was growing up, and he specifically called them out for leading him down a negative path. In a written statement, he described how it felt to him, calling it, “a downward spiral, whereby the tabloids would constantly try and coax me, a ‘damaged’ young man, into doing something stupid that would make a good story and sell lots of newspapers.”