Being sick is never fun, but we’re not sure we’ve ever felt shame from being sick, either.
Apparently, Prince Harry felt fairly “ashamed” when he caught infectious mononucleosis in 2002.
Infectious mononucleosis, called mono or often called “the kissing disease,” is a virus that is commonly spread through saliva.
Of course, it can be attained through kissing, but it doesn’t have to be: you can also catch the virus from sharing dishes with someone who has mono.
It wasn’t necessarily the act of getting sick that made Harry feel so ashamed rather than the headlines that came out during the time he was sick.
In a court appearance on Tuesday, he was sure to point out the “huge stigma” associated with mono and how it’s contracted.
Prince Harry calls out media company and mono stigma
While appearing in court against Mirror Group Newspapers, he revealed the “impact on me was huge” when it came to the headlines released at the time.
Not to mention, he has no idea “how anyone outside of [his] immediate family knew” of his illness.
“The whole school seemed to know, no one would go near me and I was a bit of a laughing stock,” Harry added. “I was miserable.”
Not only did the whole school know, but the laughing stock seemed never ending as he was reportedly “teased endlessly” after the company released the news nationwide.
The mysterious circumstances about how this media company acquired the news is part of what triggered this court appearance as Prince Harry has accused the company of hacking his phone.
Prince Harry sues MGN for hacking his phone
Mirror Group Newspapers, the publisher for outlets such as the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror, and Daily Express, has been accused of hacking Prince Harry‘s phone to gather information about him.
“Tabloids would routinely publish articles about me that were often wrong but interspersed with snippets of truth, which I now think were most likely gleaned from voicemail interception and/or unlawful information gathering,” Harry expressed in the courtroom.
However, MGN’s attorney seems to have a different (and in our opinion, more likely) explanation for how this information is leaked.
Attorney Andrew Green KC claims that all of the information was “disclosed by or on behalf of royal households or members of the royal family.”
Although they have admitted that they hired private investigators and obtained information about Prince Harry illegally in the past, it doesn’t seem that Harry is convinced that that’s all that they did.
There are many royal sources and insiders, so it’s hard to tell who may have allegedly leaked the information.