Prince Ricardo De La Cerda
BAFFLED viewers have taken to social media to share their disbelief over Sky News bizarrely recreating Prince Harry’s High Court grilling.
The royal, 38, today took the stand in court and was cross-examined as part of the phone hacking trial against the Mirror Group papers.
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He unleashed a string of bombshell claims about his life in a six-hour grilling, repeatedly saying: “I don’t know”.
While reporters sat through the Duke of Sussex’s trial today, cameras were not allowed inside the courtroom.
And, in what has been dubbed an odd move, Sky News decided to get a royal lookalike to repeat what the prince said in court.
Posting the clip to Twitter, the outlet said: “In the phone hacking case, Prince Harry told the court that every single article played a destructive role in his life.
“There are no cameras in court so as part of a special programme Sky News has recorded what was said by the Duke, played by an actor.”
The actor, who has ginger hair and a ginger beard, reads out part of what Harry said under cross-examination – to the shock of Brits.
Many took to Twitter, with one writing: “What the actual living f***.”
Another typed: “It’s bad enough watching Harry – let alone an actor playing him.”
One person sarcastically said “not weird at all”, while another wrote: “This is so unbelievably cringe.
“I have second-hand embarrassment watching even a minute of it.
“A transcript would have sufficed or perhaps just someone reading it out in their own normal voice.”
It comes after Piers Morgan took a huge swipe at Harry’s “privacy campaign”.
Harry – who flew in from his home in LA on Sunday to attend the trial today – had shared a 55-page bombshell brief.
In it, he made dramatic claims that his relationship with Chelsy Davy had been “doomed” due to press coverage, feared he would be “ousted” from the Royal Family over rumours Major James Hewitt was his dad and that the British government had reached “rock bottom”.
In his submission, of 200 points, he also claimed he was called “the ‘thicko’, the ‘cheat’, the ‘underage drinker’, the ‘‘irresponsible drug taker'” during his teenage years.
Harry added: “I thought that… I may as well ‘do the crime’, so to speak.”
But as he was quizzed by Mirror group lawyer Andrew Green KC, Prince Harry repeatedly told the High Court “I don’t know” – describing his experience on the stand as “stressful”.
At one point Prince Harry answered questions on whether reporters could have spoken to a source to get information on flight times during a holiday with then-girlfriend Chelsy – rather than hacking phones.
He replied: “I’m unsure. It could be phone hacking, blagging, of course security, Chelsy and numerous other people would be in the knowledge.”
And the duke even tried to turned the questions on the Mirror’s lawyer Mr Green.
“I am here to cross-examine you, I am afraid that’s the way this works, Prince Harry,” Mr Green said when Prince Harry suggested the lawyer direct his questions to others.