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Similarities between Meghan Markle and Princess Diana’s bombshell interviews

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News Desk

Updated on July 15, 2021

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The late Princess Diana’s historic 1995 interview has been compared to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s Oprah Winfrey interview.

Meghan Markle and Princess Diana, who died in 1997, both offered powerful glimpses into their lives as members of the British royal family, and their disclosures were disturbingly similar.

The impression given is that the palace has developed a habit of isolating royal spouses.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s interview with Oprah Winfrey served as a reminder of another terrible event in royal history.

Since its premiere, Harry and Meghan chat has sparked a lot of attention, as the pair revealed many bombshells that shed light on their choice to leave the royal family last year.

Diana married Prince Charles, the heir apparent to the throne, in July 1981 and became a worldwide celebrity almost immediately. But Prince William and Prince Harry’s parents soon announced their separation in December 1992, three years before the “people’s princess” sat down for a broadcast interview with BBC’s Martin Bashir, amid allegations of adultery.

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s primetime show felt revolutionary, and it was, particularly in the couple’s descriptions of feeling abandoned by the royal family, Meghan’s brave decision to speak openly about her mental health struggles, and their shocking claim that conversations about their son Archie’s skin color had taken place within “The Firm.”

The Duchess said that she didn’t know much about the royal family when she was younger, not even about Diana’s famous interview.

“It wasn’t something that was part of conversation at home,” she said of her California upbringing. “It wasn’t something that we followed. My mom even said to me a couple months ago, she said, ‘Did Diana ever do an interview?’ Now I can say, ‘Yes, a very famous one.’ But my mom doesn’t even know that, right?”

That’s how disconnected she was from the royal world before marrying Prince Harry. And, after marrying him, things didn’t become any clearer – at least not right away.

Princess Diana’s interview revealed many significant disclosures, including her famous remark on Charles’ relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles, “there were three of us in this marriage,” and insight into her battles with depression and bulimia during her marriage. The palace’s “concerns and conversations about how dark [their son Archie’s] skin might be when he’s born” and Markle’s suicidal thoughts while pregnant with Archie were also revealed in Prince Harry and Markle’s interview, which led to their decision to walk away.

Despite the fact that their tales aren’t identical, Meghan and Diana were both subjected to the same kind of scrutiny from the British tabloids, who followed their every step. Both ladies even confessed to a lack of assistance from the royal family’s institution.

Diana delivered bombshell after bombshell about their adulterous relationships and her own worsening mental state. Prince Harry appeared well aware of the parallels between his mother’s and wife’s stories, telling Oprah, “My biggest concern was history repeating itself.”

Diana, like Meghan, learnt as she went along, and she did so in front of the cameras.

“Here was a situation which hadn’t ever happened before in history, in the sense that the media were everywhere, and here was a fairy story that everybody wanted to work,” Diana said of the media’s early interest in her.

The media’s focus turned into a real-life nightmare for her.

Diana mentioned in the interview, “It was isolating,” later adding, “I was the one who was always pitched out front, whether it was my clothes, what I said, what my hair was doing, everything …”

Harry said that the same constant attention from the British press — including racist tabloid coverage — played a “large part” in his and Meghan’s decision to quit the royal life.