Having witnessed his mother’s attempts to cope with life as a senior member of the royal family, Prince Harry understood Duchess Meghan’s struggles with the institution after the two married.
The Duke of Sussex draws a parallel between Duchess Meghan and Princess Diana’s issues with royal life in Volume II of the Netflix docuseries Harry & Meghan. Both women effortlessly exude larger-than-life presences that captivated the public, he says, to the dismay of those around them.
"First time that the penny dropped for her, M and I spent the night in a room in Buckingham Palace after an event where every single member of the family had been, including the queen," Harry says. The next morning, while eating breakfast together, the couple spotted a U.K. newspaper. "And on the front page of The Telegraph, Meghan."
"I went, ‘Oh, my god,’" Meghan recalls.
"She was like, ‘But it’s not my fault,’ And I said, ‘I know. And my mum felt the same way,’" Harry says.
The duke explains that jealousy is a common phenomenon in a family that relies on news coverage in order to do their work.
"The issue is when someone who’s marrying in, who should be a supporting act, is then stealing the limelight or is doing the job better than the person who is born to do this, that upsets people. It shifts the balance," he says. "Because you’ve been led to believe that the only way that your charities can succeed and the only way that your reputation can be grown or improved is if you’re on the front page of those newspapers. But the media are the ones who choose who to put on the front page."
The late Princess of Wales opened up about the same issue during her infamous BBC interview in 1995.
When asked, at the time, if she felt flattered by the constant media attention, Diana said, "No, not particularly. Because with the media attention came a lot of jealousy. A great deal of complicated situations arose because of that."
Princess Diana and Prince Charles during their royal tour of Australia in 1983.Princess Diana Archive//Getty Images
Harry says that the two women had comparable emotional reactions to being the subject of widespread media attention.
"What they were doing to [Meghan] and the effect that it was having on her … like, enough. Enough of the pain. Enough of the suffering. No one sees what’s happening behind closed doors," Harry says. "Back in the day, my mum was in the back of the car, going to engagements in floods of tears. And then my dad’s saying, ‘Almost there.’ And 30 seconds to wipe the tears away, slap on some makeup, and then the door opens and smile, everything’s fine.’
Harry also compared his mother to Meghan in Volume I of the series.
"So much of what Meghan is and how she is is so similar to my mum," he said. "She has the same compassion. She has the same empathy. She has the same confidence. She has this warmth about her."
