Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s interview is reminiscent of Princess Diana’s controversial 1995 interview.
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Buckingham Palace does not appear to have learned any lessons from the Lady Di tragedy. In 1995 she gave a shocking interview to the BBC about her life at the British court. Now Meghan Markle has done the same.
Prince Harry has made the comparison with his mother several times. He feared that “history would repeat itself” with his family. As an outsider, Diana could count on little understanding. Like Markle, Diana suffered constant attacks from the tabloids. For example, she was put away as unstable. The Palace let it be.
Mental health
Meghan Markle told Oprah Winfrey that she had suicidal thoughts and was seeking psychological help. But Buckingham Palace turned down that help. Princess Diana also struggled with her mental health. During her marriage to Prince Charles, she struggled with feelings of depression and an eating disorder. She could not count on support either. Everyone knew then that her husband, Prince Charles, was having an affair with Camilla Parker Bowles. She told all that during the interview.
The words that both women used in their interview show similarities. “You think you know what’s coming,” said Diana, who was nineteen years old when she married Charles in 1995. “I didn’t fully understand the job,” said Markle. Princess Diana felt that ‘people close to her’ saw her as a problem. Meghan Markle lashed out at ‘the institute’.
Both felt misunderstood at court and did not want to simply accept the protocols that belonged to court life. It’s as if more than twenty-five years later, Markle had the same experience as Princess Diana, even though they come from completely different backgrounds. Both refused to remain silent and did so in front of millions of audiences on television.
Transformation
During the interview with Oprah Winfrey, Princess Diana was never far away. Markle wore a bracelet that once belonged to Diana. And Prince Harry spoke openly about his mother’s tragic death when he was eleven years old. He said Diana would be upset about how the couple was treated. She is also said to have supported them in their decision to seek a new life outside the royal family.
British author Beatrix Campbell, who wrote the book Diana, Princess of Wales: how sexual politics shook the monarchy describes Diana’s interview as historical. But it hasn’t changed much. People assumed that the royal family had somehow reinvented itself after Diana’s death, she says. The Washington Post. “But that turns out not to be the case now.”
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