Just last month, Prince Harry insisted he would never settle in his court case against Rupert Murdoch’s media group.
He said he was ‘the last person’ who could achieve accountability from the media. That he, a self-styled ‘dragon slayer’ of the Press, would pursue the case to the end on behalf of those who lacked the financial resources to sue.
Yet settle is what he did this week – for a reported £10million and an unequivocal apology from News Group Newspapers for historic intrusions into not just his personal life but also that of his mother Princess Diana.
His lawyers described it as a ‘monumental victory’. Maybe so. But Harry’s decision to settle still begs the question why he did so. It goes against his promise to have his day in court.
Was he worried that a drawn-out battle would overshadow Meghan’s new Netflix cooking show, ‘With Love, Meghan’, due to launch on March 4?
After all, with the passionate yet not-so-bright Duke in the witness box, the headlines about Harry and the Press might have eclipsed everything about Meghan in the kitchen.
And the Sussexes, with their multi-millionaire lifestyle in California, are said to be pinning their financial hopes on the new show after the collapse of their $20 million Spotify deal.
Meanwhile, the matter of finances brings us to the other reason Harry might have settled.

Prince Harry this week settled for a reported £10million and an unequivocal apology from News Group Newspapers

Meghan’s new Netflix cooking show With Love, Meghan is due to launch on March 4
Experts believe the vast bulk of his payout could be swallowed by legal fees. Could the Sussexes actually have afforded to go through weeks in court, with the costs mounting day by day?
Who knows? But Harry’s out of court settlement does seem to make sense – if you just follow the money.
Despite saying in 2009 he would resign from Gordon Brown’s government for environmental reasons if a third Heathrow runway was approved, pious Ed Miliband now insists it wouldn’t make him quit his Net Zero job. The humbug’s enough to make you choke on a bacon sandwich.
Manchester City footballer Kyle Walker leaves the UK for AC Milan on loan. His wife Annie and their four kids will join him in Italy. Is it a coincidence his former mistress Lauryn Goodman, mum to two more of his children, has asked him permission to rent out the house he bought her? I wouldn’t put it past Lauryn to suddenly discover a love of all things Italian and opt for a transfer herself.
Launching her Valentine’s Day gift selection, Gwyneth Paltrow says ‘nothing says I love you’ like a £24,000 18-carat diamond necklace, a more modest £17,000 gold bangle or a tin of £600 caviar. It reminded me of my last Valentine gift. It was a huge bunch of red roses with a saucy card – addressed not to me but, as I later discovered, his other girlfriend.
Bonhams is auctioning Hollywood stars’ outfits, including the cherry-red frou-frou monstrosity Anne Hathaway wore for the 2020 premiere of The Witches. Does anyone really think, first, they’d fit into her size minus-zero frock and, second, they’d dazzle anyone given that even Anne looked like a pink meringue?
Cameron Diazzles
Cameron Diaz makes her movie comeback – after taking 11 years off to raise her two children – in the aptly named Back In Action alongside Jamie Foxx.
Now 52, she says: ‘I’ve left my rom-com era and I’m now in my mom-com era.’
She plays a retired spy returning to duty. I’ve watched it, it’s unbelievably silly, got terrible reviews, so she’s gone from rom-com to mom-com to dud-com.
Yet Cameron is gorgeous and, unlike most middle-aged mums, utterly ageless. Leaving me wondering if it’s a bit of a mom-con.

Cameron Diaz, 52, is making her movie comeback – after 11 years off raising her children
Hubris of Trump Bishop
After woke Bishop Mariann Budde demanded ‘mercy’ for transgender children and illegal immigrants in a sermon at Donald Trump’s inauguration, he tweeted, ‘She brought her church into the world of politics in a very ungracious way’ and said she should apologise to citizens. Too right. Budde’s Episcopal Church has 1.5million members – half a per cent of the US population. It doesn’t exactly speak for the people!
As A 100mph storm lashes Britain with hurricane-force winds and torrential rain, I’m wondering if the person who named it Eowyn is a Lord Of The Rings fan. Eowyn is J.R.R. Tolkien’s heroine, the shieldmaiden of Rohan. That story had a happy ending, so let’s hope the current storm does too.
Much admiration for the shoppers who rammed their trolleys through animal-rights no-hopers barricading a Sainsbury’s meat aisle. Although did they miss a trick? They could have rubbed a pound of mince in their faces.
A dog charity says the pets suffer from January blues. My moggie Ted says cats do, too. Unable to go outside in the freezing weather – and eating all day – he’s put on 10lbs and is unable to squeeze through the cat flap. No wonder he’s depressed.

The Oscar nominations are out, and frontrunner for best actress is the first openly trans nominee Karla Sofia Gascon
And the Oscar for wokery goes to…
The Oscar nominations are out, and frontrunner for best actress is the first openly trans nominee, Karla Sofia Gascon, for her role in Emilia Perez – a musical about a Mexican cartel boss who has gender reassignment surgery for a disguise.
Frankly, in the excruciatingly woke world of Hollywood the other actresses up for the Oscar gong, Demi Moore, Fernanda Torres and Cynthia Erivo, might as well stay at home. They don’t stand a chance of winning – unless they now declare they’re having their lady parts adjusted while undergoing gender reassignment.
A dog charity says the pets suffer from January blues. My moggie Ted says cats do, too. Unable to go outside in the freezing weather – and eating all day – he’s put on 10lbs and is unable to squeeze through the cat flap. No wonder he’s depressed.