East 17’s Brian Harvey interrupts news broadcast as he protests outside Prince Harry’s phone-hacking trial

7 June, 2023

Brian Harvey

Former East 17 star Brian Harvey reportedly interrupted a live BBC broadcast today, while protesting outside Prince Harry’s ongoing phone-hacking trial.

The singer was spotted with a placard outside London’s High Court today (Wednesday June 7), where he is said to have shouted loudly at the Duke Of Sussex as he arrived, Yahoo reports.

BBC news correspondent Joe Inwood tweeted that the 48-year-old “disrupted” a live broadcast”, adding: “No wonder I lost my train of thought!”

Prince Harry is currently locked in a trial against Mirror Group Newspapers, claiming that they unlawfully gathered information about him – alleging that MGN employed hacked his phones and those of his associates and hired private investigators to illegally “blag” his confidential information. MGN have denied all allegations made by the Duke Of Sussex, insisting that some of the stories were sourced from within the royal households.

Harvey was protesting outside the court about his own war with tabloids against tabloids,    with the ‘Stay Another Day’ star seen holding an enlarged copy of an email from a News Of The World journalist to the police, regarding transcripts obtained conversations between the singer and an alleged drug dealer in 2002. He has been regularly outspoken about his battles against newspapers on his Youtube channel.

In 2021, Harvey livestreamed the moment police came to his house to arrest him – filming the officers for hours of footage as they came to take him for questioning about “malicious communications”.

Harvey was previously arrested on suspicion of sending malicious tweets in 2017. This came after he was filmed outside Downing Street in 2014, demanding to speak to the then Prime Minister David Cameron about royalties he believed he was owed for past Christmas Number One ‘Stay Another Day’. He also made headlines in 2005 when he was treated in hospital after he accidentally ran himself over – later claiming later claimed he had eaten a large meal of three baked potatoes with cheese and tuna mayonnaise and had leant out of the door to be sick.

In 2015, he referred to BBC Radio One as a “peado protecting, shit music playing, corporate wankstain” and “shitty commercial poo bag station”. The BBC then responded that “these comments are clearly absurd and offensive”. This came after it was reported that Harvey had mounted his own inquiry into historic child sex abuse cases.

The singer has also been outspoken about his battles with mental health and depression, and his struggles after East 17 found fame. “We sold 18 million records and the frustrating thing for me is that I have to sit there every Christmas and listen to myself while I don’t even have the money for a Christmas dinner,” said Harvey in 2015.

“I am sitting here eating a cold chicken burger on Christmas Day. You have got this number one record … I am just rattling around in a cold house with no food, on my own, with my record being played – but you are just a no one.”

Harvey was a member of East 17 – later E-17 – until 2010 when the band reformed and replaced him. He has also had a solo career – including an attempt to represent the UK at the Eurovision Song Contest in 2007, and appeared in the 2004 series of I‘m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here!

The post East 17’s Brian Harvey interrupts news broadcast as he protests outside Prince Harry’s phone-hacking trial appeared first on NME.