Rupert Murdoch has urged Prince Harry's critics to give him "a break" in the wake of the controversy over naked photographs of him.
It comes after the Sun, owned by Mr Murdoch, became the first UK newspaper to publish the images of the prince, taken in Las Vegas.
Mr Murdoch used his Twitter account to voice his support for Harry.
Meanwhile, more than 850 complaints have been made to the press watchdog about the photographs.
Nearly all concern invasion of privacy and will be investigated by the Press Complaints Commission in due course.
The News International owner wrote: "Prince Harry. Give him a break. He may be on the public payroll one way or another, but the public loves him, even to enjoy Las Vegas."
On Friday, the Sun published the photographs under the headline "Heir it is". The paper added: "Pic of naked Harry you've already seen on the internet."
It argued that printing the images was in the public interest and a "crucial" test of the country's free press.
Sun managing editor David Dinsmore said it would have been "perverse" not to publish the pictures, which "are now in the public domain in every country in the world".
The pictures emerged from a private weekend the prince spent with friends. The two photos of the prince and a naked woman in a hotel room are believed to have been taken on a camera phone on 17 August.
They first appeared on US website TMZ earlier this week, which reported that he had been in a group playing "strip billiards".
The decision by British newspapers not to publish the pictures despite their publication elsewhere had prompted a debate about the impact the Leveson Inquiry was having on press behaviour.
The inquiry was set up to investigate the practices and ethics of the press following the phone-hacking scandal.
