Charlotte Church Criticizes Sun's Publication of Naked Prince Harry Photos

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LONDON - British singer Charlotte Church has criticized the publication of the naked photos of Prince Harry by The Sun, the tabloid that is part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

The music star, who earlier this year received damages tied to the phone hacking scandal, has emerged as a regular critic of the U.K. media.

"The pictures were available on the net if you wanted to see them and if you wanted to form your own opinion," Church told the BBC Wales News web site.

"I don't think they needed to go that step further to print them."

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Added Church: "It was in a private hotel room. I think it was an invasion of his privacy." But she also said: "I'm not a royalist, I don't sit on either side of the fence."

As of the weekend, more than 850 complaints to the country's press watchdog had been reported, but the paper and Murdoch have defended the decision as important for press freedom.

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Murdoch over the weekend tweeted that the publication of the Prince Harry pictures, from a party weekend in Las Vegas, was the decision of the Sun's editor, but he supported it. "Needed to demonstrate no such thing as free press in UK," Murdoch tweeted. "Internet makes mockery of these issues. 1st amendment please."

Church, who also testified at the Leveson Inquiry into media ethics, and her parents earlier this year were awarded damages of £600,000 ($950,000) from a News Corp. arm after it had emerged that her phone was hacked when she was 16 years old.

Email: Georg.Szalai@thr.com
Twitter: @georgszalai