Why we’re sympathetic to Princess Diana — but not Harry and Meghan
Much as his mother, the late Princess Diana, denied having anything to do with a sympathetic book packed with insider details called “Diana: Her True Story,” Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan Markle, deny having cooperated with a sympathetic book packed with insider details called “Finding Freedom: Harry and Meghan and the Making of a Modern Royal Family.”
That’s where the similarities end.
When Diana’s book was published in 1992, it had the impact of a meteor strike. Here was a beloved senior royal, the future queen of England, exposing the secrets of The Firm and the depths of her personal misery — the photo negative to what the world had been presented, the beautiful, glamorous princess living out the fairy-tale ending.
Such a thing had never been done before. That made it all the more shocking.
Years after her death, audio interviews were made public proving that Diana, for all her denials, was Source Number One.
Yet rather than be perceived as a villain or an ingrate, Diana further endeared herself to the world. In “Diana: Her True Story,” she spoke of her dawning realization that she had been plucked as future queen only because she was a 19-year-old virgin and that her husband was in love with someone else. Yet Diana still performed her royal duties admirably. She produced the heir and the spare. She injected glamour, heart and modernity into a fading institution. She did real humanitarian work.
If Diana was going to be cast out of the British royal family after 12 years of loyal service, she was going to get even.
More than 20 years later, her younger son has Megxited, following what seems a similar script: Appeal for public sympathy, release a tell-all book, emerge even more popular and beloved.
That last part isn’t working out.
We all saw it, the royal family welcoming Meghan and fast-tracking her for royal life like no one before.
Prince Charles walking her down the aisle. A son allowed to marry for love, even as unions with American divorcees had been forbidden before. The Queen even gave Harry and Meghan their own staff and a new estate, plus $3 million in taxpayer funds to renovate their quarters, despite Harry having fallen to sixth in line for the throne.
For all this largesse, Harry and Meghan moved right out of their freshly renovated home, then blindsided the Queen with their public resignation from royal life, claiming victimhood all the way. Meghan had been on the job less than two years, had been given almost everything she asked for. Her major gripe was that the royal family wouldn’t let her say and do whatever she wanted, even though that is the well-established deal: Royals are funded by the British taxpayers, and in return, they perform modest and predictable duties.
Celebrity memoirs, tell-alls in particular, are usually about score-settling. Diana had a lot to be upset about. Why are Harry and Meghan so upset? The biggest drama in their book is Meghan selecting her wedding tiara.
This takes up six-and-a-half pages. Quite telling for the alleged wokest royal ever.
Not to mention the depiction of Harry and Meghan as — no exaggeration — the most wonderful, flawless, kind, well-intentioned people ever.
Diana made sure her book was full of her own shortcomings, insecurities and vulnerabilities. In bringing herself down to earth, she won even more esteem.
“I remember being a fat, podgy, non-make-up, not smart lady,” Diana said of meeting Prince Charles when she was 16 years old. “But I made a lot of noise, and he liked that.”
For years, tabloids speculated that Diana had an eating disorder, confirmed in the book. “The bulimia started the week after we got engaged,” Diana said. “My husband put his hand on my waistline and said something like, ‘Oh, a bit chubby here, aren’t we?’ And that triggered off something in me. I remember the first time I made myself sick, I was so thrilled.”
Weeks before the wedding, Diana learned that Charles was carrying on an affair with his ex-girlfriend Camilla Parker-Bowles, and she was expected to deal with it — doubly humiliating as Diana was young and beautiful, Camilla older and resembling, as Diana would call her, a “Rottweiler.”
On her wedding day: “I was very, very deathly calm, deathly, deathly calm. I felt as though I was a lamb to the slaughter.”
Three months into her marriage, “I was about to cut my wrists. I was in a very bad way. I came [back to London] to seek treatment. I was in such a bad way. Couldn’t sleep, didn’t eat, the whole world collapsing around me. All the analysts and psychiatrists you could ever dream of came plodding in. Tried to sort me out. Put me on high doses of Valium. It was me telling them what I needed. They were telling me, ‘pills.’ But the Diana that was still very much there decided that it was just time, patience, and adapting that was all that was needed.”
Multiple suicide attempts were revealed. “I hated myself so much I didn’t think I was good enough. The public side, they wanted a fairy princess … Little did they realize that the individual was crucifying herself inside because she didn’t think she was good enough.”
Contrast this with the depiction and descriptions of Meghan in “Finding Freedom”:
Before their first date, Meghan was not only unimpressed with Harry’s royal status, she claimed to know nothing of him — in fact, “what Meghan may have seen online could have easily convinced her to call off the whole thing.”
On the transformation she inspired in Harry: “Meghan, the type of girl to grab a smoothie after a hot yoga or Pilates session, pushed Harry to up his game.”
On her wedding day, “Meghan radiated calm.” We are treated to her makeup artist’s tricks and techniques, as well as Meghan’s Spotify playlist for getting ready. Her hair colorist, we are informed, gave her locks a “rich, healthy and reflective look.”
“Beatlemania” — the reaction Meghan inspires in crowds. Again, only her late mother-in-law could have made such a claim, and she never would have.
“Flawless engagements on her first major royal tour” — the anonymous review of Meghan’s inherently royal mien. “Grace Under Fire” and “Super Meg” — just two nicknames for this heroine.
And, of course, there’s Meghan’s adaptability. “She’s always been one to bloom where she’s planted.”
Subtext: If a marvel like Meghan Markle can’t hack it chez Windsor, no one can.
Most telling is the difference between Diana and Meghan’s emotions while seeking the Queen’s approval — and remember, Diana was aristocracy, said to have more royal blood than the Windsors themselves.
Meghan: “The conversation flowed naturally before Meghan had to leave — a full ten minutes after their one-hour time slot. The Queen, arguably the busiest woman in the country” — ! — “never ran over schedule. It was a good sign.”
Diana: “S—ting bricks.”
Who sounds more genuine to you?
It’s amazing that Harry learned nothing from his mother, her preternatural understanding of the media and how to manipulate it. Nearly everyone suspected Diana was lying about involvement with her book but no one cared, because what she revealed was raw and humiliating and so human.
Harry and Meghan, on the other hand, have reached peak entitlement. They may be the whiniest millennials on the planet, their delusional book depicting them as two perfect beings who can’t understand why everyone else a) won’t worship them and b) leave them alone.
If not so poorly written, “Finding Freedom” would be high comedy.
“Despite a pandemic raging through the globe, the tabloids didn’t give up their pursuit of Harry and Meghan.”
Really? Here’s the truth: Despite this raging pandemic, Harry and Meghan can’t stop spoon-feeding vapid details of their lives to the very tabloid media they claim to hate. The Daily Mail’s website has basically turned into a Harry and Meghan fan page, even as public sympathy — initially on their side, these young royals who claimed to want privacy — wanes as their hypocrisy balloons.
Diana was a student of Fleet Street and tabloid media. She called reporters herself. She snuck her book’s author into Kensington Palace in the trunk of a car and executed the greatest sneak attack against the British Empire since the Battle of Yorktown.
Harry, we learn, reads the Daily Mail online more than you’d think and gets very upset by nasty reader comments.
Perhaps he and Meghan will find momentary solace in the $10 million Santa Barbara estate Prince Charles just purchased for them — despite Harry having received that very amount from Diana’s estate. Once again, Harry and Meghan are showing their contempt for British taxpayers, happy to stay on Charles’ payroll while refusing to earn their royal keep.
“They have settled into the quiet privacy of their community since their arrival,” Harry and Meghan’s spokesperson said this week, “and hope this will be respected for their neighbors as well as for them as a family.”
Respect their privacy. Buy their book. Diana was many things, but a hypocrite she was not.
Contrast this with the depiction and descriptions of Meghan in “Finding Freedom”:
Before their first date, Meghan was not only unimpressed with Harry’s royal status, she claimed to know nothing of him — in fact, “what Meghan may have seen online could have easily convinced her to call off the whole thing.”
On the transformation she inspired in Harry: “Meghan, the type of girl to grab a smoothie after a hot yoga or Pilates session, pushed Harry to up his game.”
On her wedding day, “Meghan radiated calm.” We are treated to her makeup artist’s tricks and techniques, as well as Meghan’s Spotify playlist for getting ready. Her hair colorist, we are informed, gave her locks a “rich, healthy and reflective look.”
“Beatlemania” — the reaction Meghan inspires in crowds. Again, only her late mother-in-law could have made such a claim, and she never would have.
“Flawless engagements on her first major royal tour” — the anonymous review of Meghan’s inherently royal mien. “Grace Under Fire” and “Super Meg” — just two nicknames for this heroine.
And, of course, there’s Meghan’s adaptability. “She’s always been one to bloom where she’s planted.”
Subtext: If a marvel like Meghan Markle can’t hack it chez Windsor, no one can.
Most telling is the difference between Diana and Meghan’s emotions while seeking the Queen’s approval — and remember, Diana was aristocracy, said to have more royal blood than the Windsors themselves.
Meghan: “The conversation flowed naturally before Meghan had to leave — a full ten minutes after their one-hour time slot. The Queen, arguably the busiest woman in the country” — ! — “never ran over schedule. It was a good sign.”
Diana: “S—ting bricks.”
Who sounds more genuine to you?
It’s amazing that Harry learned nothing from his mother, her preternatural understanding of the media and how to manipulate it. Nearly everyone suspected Diana was lying about involvement with her book but no one cared, because what she revealed was raw and humiliating and so human.
Harry and Meghan, on the other hand, have reached peak entitlement. They may be the whiniest millennials on the planet, their delusional book depicting them as two perfect beings who can’t understand why everyone else a) won’t worship them and b) leave them alone.
If not so poorly written, “Finding Freedom” would be high comedy.
“Despite a pandemic raging through the globe, the tabloids didn’t give up their pursuit of Harry and Meghan.”
Really? Here’s the truth: Despite this raging pandemic, Harry and Meghan can’t stop spoon-feeding vapid details of their lives to the very tabloid media they claim to hate. The Daily Mail’s website has basically turned into a Harry and Meghan fan page, even as public sympathy — initially on their side, these young royals who claimed to want privacy — wanes as their hypocrisy balloons.
Diana was a student of Fleet Street and tabloid media. She called reporters herself. She snuck her book’s author into Kensington Palace in the trunk of a car and executed the greatest sneak attack against the British Empire since the Battle of Yorktown.
Harry, we learn, reads the Daily Mail online more than you’d think and gets very upset by nasty reader comments.
Perhaps he and Meghan will find momentary solace in the $10 million Santa Barbara estate Prince Charles just purchased for them — despite Harry having received that very amount from Diana’s estate. Once again, Harry and Meghan are showing their contempt for British taxpayers, happy to stay on Charles’ payroll while refusing to earn their royal keep.
“They have settled into the quiet privacy of their community since their arrival,” Harry and Meghan’s spokesperson said this week, “and hope this will be respected for their neighbors as well as for them as a family.”
Respect their privacy. Buy their book. Diana was many things, but a hypocrite she was not.
