Princess Diana, Meghan Markle: Will the Duchess suffer the same fate?

Meghan Markle shares much in common with her late mother-in-law but there’s one major difference that sets them apart.

Meghan Markle was just 16 years old and living in California in 1997 when her future mother-in-law Princess Diana was killed in a high-speed car crash in Paris.

Twenty-five years later, Markle, now the Duchess of Sussex, could never have imagined the similar path she would tread to the doomed princess within the confines of the bound-by-convention royals.

We look at the similarities between the two in the ways that they both shook up the stuffy royals but differed in how Meghan did not make the mistakes of her mother-in-law.

FAMILY PAIN

Princess Diana may have been a member of Britain’s cloistered aristocracy (the Spencers were close to the royal family for generations – and a young Diana even called the Queen, “Aunt Lilibet”) while Meghan grew up only the child of a TV lighting director and a yoga instructor-turned-social worker but both suffered significant family dysfunction.

A teenage Diana Spencer reads a novel written by her step-grandmother Dame Barbara Cartland. Picture: Supplied

Meghan Markle with her parents Thomas Markle and Doria Ragland. Meghan is now estranged from her father. Picture: Thomas Markle: My Story

Princess Diana’s mother, Frances, left the family to wed Peter Shand Kydd, the heir to a wallpaper fortune, leaving her small children behind with their father, Earl Spencer, who had won a bitter custody battle to keep them. Diana reportedly never really recovered from her parents’ split and later had a difficult relationship with her father’s second wife, Raine.

Princess Diana’s marriage to Prince Charles was doomed from the start. Picture: Supplied

The public’s fascination with Meghan Markle was at its height in the early days of her marriage to Prince Harry. Picture: Getty Images

Towards the end of her life, Diana had a strained relationship with her brother, Charles, who she was reportedly not speaking to at the time of her death when he refused her refuge at Althorp, the Spencer family estate for five centuries. She had wanted privacy and a break from constant press attention.

The Queen looks on during Meghan Markle’s wedding to Prince Harry. Picture: AFP

Meghan tread a similar familial path. Her parents split when she was just two years old and she has had a complicated relationship with her father and half-siblings from whom she is estranged and who, famously, did not attend her wedding.

Princess Diana and Meghan Markle came from different worlds but had much in common. Picture: Getty Images

DIFFERING LIFE EXPERIENCES

Princess Diana was only 20 when she married Prince Charles in 1981 and her life changed overnight. Yes, she was a member of the aristocracy but, at the time of her marriage, she was a kindergarten teacher sharing a London flat with friends. She went from that to being one of the most famous women in the world.

Meghan Markle appeared in the long-running drama, Suits. Picture: Getty Images

When Meghan married Prince Harry in 2018 at the age of 36, she had already been married before (she divorced her first husband, Trevor Engelson after 18 months in 2013), earned a university degree and had a successful acting career, appearing in the long-running drama, Suits. Separately, before her marriage fell apart, Princess Diana faced the daunting prospect of being Queen; Prince Harry was never going to get close to the throne.

Princess Diana, pictured in 1980, was a kindergarten teacher at the time of her marriage to Prince Charles. Picture: Getty Images

PUBLIC OBSESSION

The director behind HBO’s recent – and brilliant – documentary The Princess (which shows the rise and fall of Princess Diana entirely through news footage) says he was struck by the similarities behind the late Princess of Wales and Meghan in the way the public scrutinised their every move.

Prince Charles and Princess Diana, after their engagement was announced in February, 1981. Picture: Supplied

“For a space of about a month or two, it seemed like (Harry and Meghan) were the only thing people were talking about,” director Ed Perkins said in a recent interview.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle announce their engagement at Kensington Palace in November 2017. Picture: AFP

“Very few people were apathetic and it reminded me of the response I was seeing in the archive from 25, 30 years previously, where, for the entirety of Diana’s public life, we were dissecting everything.

People had strong polarised opinions all the way throughout her life and after her death, and it did feel interesting that there was a sort of similar national conversation happening 25 years later,” he said.

Meghan Markle has returned to live in her home country. Picture: AFP

Princess Diana became the most photographed woman in the world. Picture: AFP

Separately, while Princess Diana was persona non grata within the royal family, the “People’s Princess” was beloved by the majority of the British public; while, despite a positive start, Meghan’s popularity with the public plummeted and she has since felt the wrath of Brits who blame her for taking Prince Harry away from his family and country.

Princess Diana with the then Camilla Parker-Bowles. ‘There were three people in this marriage,’ Diana later said. Picture: Getty Images

THOSE BOMBSHELL INTERVIEWS

Twenty-six years apart, Princess Diana and Meghan sat down for two separate “bombshell” interviews. Meghan, alongside Prince Harry, was in California, ready to tell all to Oprah Winfrey. Princess Diana was in her London living room with the now disgraced BBC journalist, Martin Bashir. Both spoke about their struggles with royal life, voracious press attention and battles with depression.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle stunned the royal family by revealing all to Oprah Winfrey. Picture: CBS

“You think you have the knowledge of what’s coming ahead,” Princess Diana told Bashir in 1995. “I didn’t fully understand what the job was,” the Duchess of Sussex said to Oprah Winfrey in 2021.

“I seemed to be on the front of a newspaper every single day,” said Diana. “I am everywhere,” Meghan echoed years later.

Princess Diana opened up to Martin Bashir in 1995. Picture: Getty Images

Princess Diana felt stymied by “people in my environment”. Meghan, meanwhile, spoke of the intangible “institution”.

“I didn’t like myself. I was ashamed because I couldn’t cope with the pressures,” Princess Diana told Bashir. “I was really ashamed to say it at the time,” Meghan said. “But … I just didn’t want to be alive anymore.”

Prince Harry enjoys a happy marriage to Meghan Markle. The couple pictured with their children, Archie and Lilibet. Picture: Alexi Lubomirski

MARRIED LIFE

Indeed, the most symbolic difference between the two women is their vastly different marriages.

Clearly, Meghan is fully supported by her husband and the couple seemingly enjoy a happy marriage that has produced two children, Archie and Lilibet.

Tensions between the Sussexes and the Cambridges became evident. Picture: AFP

Princess Diana was largely ostracised from the royal family. Picture: Getty Images

Princess Diana’s union to Prince Charles was largely viewed – in hindsight – as a marriage of convenience. At 32, he was viewed as getting on a bit and the royals wanted him married and they wanted an heir. Charles, however, has no interest in marrying Diana and was in love with a married woman (Camilla Parker-Bowles who became his second wife).

Meghan Markle with her friend, Serena Williams (and the tennis champ’s daughter, Alexis). Picture: Instagram

Princess Diana with friends Elton John, Sting, and Trudy Styler at Gianni Versace’s funeral, the month before her death. Picture: AP

After a largely miserable 15 years of marriage, the couple were officially divorced in 1996, the year before Princess Diana’s death and it was reported that the heir to the throne insisted on removing her royal title.

Meghan, however, has total control; ditching royal life and moving home to the US where the family lives in a Los Angeles mansion and rubs shoulders with the likes of Winfrey, Serena Williams, Ellen DeGeneres, George Clooney and Katy Perry.

She and Prince Harry have a multitude of multimillion-dollar deals on the go with the likes of Spotify and Netflix and seem happy to be well away from the royal fishbowl.

Originally published as Princess Diana, Meghan Markle: Will the Duchess suffer the same fate?