Stuart Higgins (born c.1956)^[1] is a British public relations consultant and former newspaper editor.

In 1972 Higgins left school in Kingswood, on the outskirts of Bristol, and began his career as a reporter at the South West News, an agency founded by Roland Arblaster.^[1][2] He began working for The Sun in 1979 as their West Country reporter.^[3] He was arrested in 1982 by the police after being found with a Sun photographer "testing security" at Highgrove House, home of Charles, Prince of Wales.^[1]

At one point, Kelvin MacKenzie printed Higgins' direct phone number in The Sun, billed him as the "human sponge" and asked readers to call Higgins to "get things off their chest".^[4][1] In 1994, Higgins succeeded MacKenzie as editor of the newspaper.^[5] In 1996, Higgins wrote a front-page story about an intimate video purporting to feature Diana, Princess of Wales with James Hewitt. The video turned out to be a hoax.^[1]

Higgins left The Sun in June 1998.^[3] On 11 November 2003, Labour MP Clive Soley, using parliamentary privilege, alleged that News International had paid £500,000 'hush money' to a female employee who had accused Higgins of sexual harassment during his time at The Sun.^[6] Soley also accused Rebekah Wade (now Brooks), then the newspaper's editor, of writing a threatening letter to the MP in order to discourage him from researching the issue.^[7][5]

Higgins subsequently set up his own public relations company,^[5] but sold the company in 2007.^[8] In February 2013, it was reported that Higgins was in Pretoria, South Africa assisting athlete Oscar Pistorius, accused of murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, in dealing with the press.^[4]