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Meghan Markle and Princess Diana: Is the royal comparison valid?

Meghan Markle and Princess Diana’s life as outsiders in the Royal Family has often been put under a microscope

By Eleen Bukhari April 29, 2025
Meghan Markle and Princess Diana
Meghan Markle and Princess Diana

Meghan Markle married Prince Harry in 2018 and sparked inevitable comparisons with her late mother-in-law, Princess Diana.

By virtue of being an outsider, many believed that the Suits actress carried the same energy as the former Princess of Wales. Like Harry's mother, Meghan was expected to position herself as a humanitarian.

Critics, on the contrary, pre-wrote Meghan's fate and declared she would break protocol and cause rifts in the family.

In fact, Prince Harry himself had hoped his relatives would be able to see Meghan through his lens, and wished that they spotted the inner Diana in his lady love.

In the book, Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the War Between the Windsors, royal author Tom Bower said that the Duke of Sussex was disappointed when none of his close relatives agreed “that his vulnerable mother had anything in common with his girlfriend”.

It is indeed tempting to imagine both Meghan and Diana would be close-knit, but one can also not ignore the key reasons that could have caused friction between the two.

That said, it is unfair to compare the two, considering both of them are shaped differently by generational shifts.

Long before Diana’s tragic death in 1997, the former Princess of Wales was branded a victim of the monarchy.

Despite her differences with the Royals, Diana did not hold back from remaining loyal to her duties. The mother-of-two decided to stay in the system and ensured she invested all her time in philanthropic causes.

Meghan, on the other hand, was relatively quick to exit her role as a full-time working member of the family and embraced an external approach to reform.

In an April 28 episode of The Jamie Kern Lima Show, Meghan was asked about her feelings over comparisons to Princess Diana.

“It's beautiful," the Duchess of Sussex answered, admitting that her husband thinks she would have been 'thick as thieves' and simply 'best friends.'

While it may be true that Diana would have deeply empathised with Meghan's struggles in the Royal Family, it is impossible that she would have approved of her and Harry's unconventional exit from the UK.

Diana was immensely protective of her sons and would have been absolutely heartbroken by the fallout between Prince William and Harry. She understood the power of the Royal platform and would not have wanted any of her sons to be deprived of it.

While it can only be speculated, Diana would thus have possessed a mix of love and concern for Meghan.

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