A Prince Harry facemask on display at a souvenir shop in London on Friday. (Reuters)

London, Aug. 24 (Reuters): Rupert Murdoch’s Sun tabloid today became the first British newspaper to defy the royal family by printing pictures of Prince Harry cavorting naked in Las Vegas.

While newspapers across the globe have published the images of Queen Elizabeth’s grandson naked with an unnamed woman after they appeared on a US gossip website on Wednesday, the British media had decided not to do so until this point.

Instead they had agreed to comply, some more reluctantly than others, with a request from lawyers acting for the royal family to respect the privacy of the prince, who is 27 and single. But the Sun decided to break ranks today, publishing a photo over much of its front page of the naked prince covering his genitals with his hands while an unclothed woman hides behind his back in his Las Vegas hotel room.

The top-selling tabloid said the grainy pictures were freely available on the Internet and the issue had become one of “the freedom of the press”. “This is about the ludicrous situation where a picture can be seen by of millions of people around the world on the Internet but can’t be seen in the nation’s favourite paper,” said David Dinsmore, managing editor of the Sun.