Actress turned duchess, Meghan Markle’s appalling experience with the royal family bears similarities to Princess Diana’s fallout but with more bigotry.
Tragedy proliferated worldwide in August of 1997 when it was announced Diana, Princess of Wales had perished from a car crash. A darling of not just the United Kingdom, approximately 2.5 billion people watched the late royal’s funeral.
While Diana’s legacy is imbued with revolutionary fashion choices and unconventionality, her disheartening experience with the rest of the royal family was recently evoked once again by her son Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex. In an interview with Oprah Winfrey that premiered on March 7th, 2021 in the U.S., Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, and Harry illuminated the harmful environment that is Buckingham Palace.
Before the interview, Harry had discussed the alienation of his late mother by the royal family following her divorce from Prince Charles of Wales, however, a more significant parallel was drawn through the interview.
“What I was seeing was history repeating itself,” Harry said in the interview, addressing the treatment of Meghan by the royals. “When you can see something happening in the same kind of way, anybody would ask for help.”
The British public as well as American viewers have since renewed their criticism of the monarchy and British media, backing up Harry and Meghan’s assertions that the Queen and company did nothing to staunch the racist remarks and untruths being spread about Meghan. This can be seen by former host of “Good Morning Britain”, Piers Morgan’s undignified response to Meghan’s sharing of her declining mental health while residing at Buckingham Palace.
The broadcaster said on air that he “didn’t believe a word” of Meghan’s statements and called her the “Pinocchio Princess” on Twitter. He resigned from the show shortly after these remarks, following more than 41,000 complaints made to the show’s regulator.
Over 11 million people in a country of 66 million tuned in to see Meghan and Harry’s interview with Oprah when it premiered in the U.K. a day after the American release.
Through the interview, Meghan expressed her feelings of depression at the palace and said she had contemplated suicide. Many have identified similarities between Meghan’s comments and Princess Diana’s accounts of her bulimia and declining mental health during her marriage to Prince Charles. Both Diana and Meghan said the royal family was not attentive to their requests for treatment or change of lifestyle.
Perhaps more startling, however, was Meghan detailing the racism prevalent, not just in the British tabloids, but in the royal family itself. When she and Harry officially split from the royal family, matters of security were addressed, specifically relating to Meghan and Harry’s son, Archie.
“We have in tandem the conversation of ‘He won’t be given security, he’s not going to be given a title’ and also concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he’s born,” Meghan said.
This racism no doubt marks a fork in the narratives of Meghan and Diana’s histories as royals. Buckingham Palace responded to the interview in an official statement saying that the issues “particularly that of race,” were concerning. It also stated, “while some recollections may vary, they are taken very seriously and will be addressed by the family privately.”
Viewers worldwide expressed their frustration towards the royal family and empathy towards Meghan. Though there was still a portion of the British public and media verbalizing their distaste towards Meghan for her comments, many, including a guest on the same show previously hosted by Piers Morgan voiced their support for Meghan and Harry.
Political activist Dr. Shola Mos-Shogbamimu was invited to “Good Morning Britain” to discuss the comments made in the interview. In response to Morgan’s comments on air, Shola denounced his defense of the royal family.
“The royal family as an institution is rooted in colonialism, white supremacy, and racism. The legacy is right there,” Shola said. “So you’re now surprised that a comment would be made by several members of the royal family about how dark Archie’s skin is? I’m shocked that you’re more outraged that Harry and Meghan had the audacity to speak their truth than you are at the actual outrage of racism.”
This presence of bigotry is, unfortunately, nothing novel to Americans. Perhaps, Meghan and Harry’s interview illuminated an inherently bigoted institution that needs extreme improvements to the British public.
Supporters of the estranged royals can only hope that Meghan’s comments regarding this injustice will free her and Harry from the restrictions Diana faced and offer them a life the late princess would want for her son and daughter-in-law.
Story originally published in Keke Magazine
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