Lucy Carne: Why Prince Harry needs to stop invoking Princess Diana’s death
Prince Harry is right to feel anger towards the press over the death of his mother 22 years ago. But he is wrong to compare the media’s treatment of Meghan Markle with that of Princess Diana, writes Lucy Carne.
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Harry, how often are you going to play the Diana card?
When Meghan Markle is attacked with disgraceful racial slurs? Absolutely.
Over her contrived, handwritten letter that pleads “daddy, … your actions have broken my heart”? Sorry, but that’s taking it too far.
It was announced last week that Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, was suing British newspaper The Mail on Sunday over a private letter she wrote to her father begging him to stop speaking to the press. Predictably, the letter wound up on the paper’s front page.
The news of the legal action broke at the end of the royal couple’s hugely successful 10-day South African tour.
We had fallen in love with baby Archie and the couple had brought attention to worthy humanitarian issues. We had also almost forgotten their hypocritical climate preaching and expensive cottage renovations.
And yet before their British Airways flight to London had left the Johannesburg tarmac, Harry threw a grenade.
MORE FROM LUCY CARNE: What the hell are Meghan and Harry playing at?
In a seething official statement accompanying the announcement of legal action, Harry raged against the British press’ “bullying” of his wife, which had come at a “human cost”.
“I’ve seen what happens when someone I love is commoditised to the point that they are no longer treated or seen as a real person,” he said, continuing: “I lost my mother and now I watch my wife falling victim to the same powerful forces.”
By “powerful forces”, he means the press.
Princess Diana died in a car crash in the Pont de l’Alma tunnel in Paris in August 1997, when Prince Harry was 12.
At the time of the accident, Diana had abandoned her palace-issued driver and protection officers and was not wearing a seatbelt with a drunk driver by the wheel.
RELATED: Why Prince Harry needs to protect Meghan from becoming the next Diana
An inquest later ruled that she had been unlawfully killed by the “gross negligence” of the driver and the paparazzi.
It is obvious that both Harry and William blame the press solely for the death of their mother. And they are right to be hurt and angry.
Harry’s discontent toward the media seeps from him during reluctant interviews.
Yesterday, his animosity became even more apparent when it was announced that he will also sue two newspaper groups over the alleged hacking of his mobile phone.
Harry’s rogue statement _ allegedly unsanctioned by the Palace _ has created what one royal expert called an “all-out war with the press”.
RELATED: Shameful treatment of Meghan is Diana 2.0 waiting to happen
But he is wrong to invoke a comparison with Diana.
Diana was a painfully naive, young woman when she married into the royal family. Meghan was a mature, divorced, semi-famous television actor with the hardworking hustle from show business.
Diana fuelled the press’ appetite and courted media attention, tipping off her whereabouts to photographers and fostering close friendships with journalists.
Having myself worked for British tabloid The Sun during the Leveson Inquiry into phone hacking, I witnessed the media’s attitude towards the royals shift to one of submissive caution.
Thanks to these changes, Meghan has not had to endure the unrelenting packs of paparazzi chasing her every move.
Yes, Meghan and Harry have been rightly criticised and held to account for their behaviour _ and they clearly don’t like that.
But they cannot claim to be innocent victims of the “bullying” press when they also play the game.
RELATED: Meghan Markle still hasn’t grasped what she signed up for
They approved friends to speak to US celebrity magazine People. Meghan has happily made herself available for Vanity Fair and British Vogue magazines.
The couple even reportedly delayed the announcement of Archie’s birth to time it with the US morning chat shows.
Of course Meghan’s elaborately handwritten note was going to be leaked.
But this is hardly a photographer creeping through private property to take photos of a topless sunbaking Kate Middleton or leaked details of Prince Charles phone call to Camilla asking to be her tampon.
If Meghan really wanted her note to be private, she should have picked up the phone and called her father, or visited the man, who is yet to meet his grandson.
What Diana understood _ and Meghan and Harry don’t _ is that a relationship with the press is a necessary function of being a celebrity royal.
MORE FROM LUCY CARNE: Queen Elizabeth isn’t woke, she’s a feminist icon
The royals need the press to legitimise their glamorous fairytale to the public _ just as the press did with Harry and Meghan’s South African tour.
And the press need the royals, so long as the public are interested in reading about them.
If Meghan and Harry don’t like this arrangement, then maybe it’s time to abandon the taxpayer-funded life and move to Malibu, as it’s rumoured they’re considering doing at some point in the future.
Or be like Princess Anne: do your duties and then stay silent and out of the spotlight.
But please, just leave Diana out of this until there’s truly something worth complaining about.
Lucy Carne is editor of Rendezview.com.au
lucy.carne@news.com.au
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