By Dan Murphy
What is the opinion of Meghan & Harry, or The Duchess of Windsor and Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex as they are officially known as? That depends on what side of the pond you are polling. I watched their interview with the other 20 million Americans and found them to be believable and in love.
I also could see how Meghan might have been difficult with some of the royal staff because she was trapped in the palace, after years of going out and doing whatever she pleased. But the lack of support that the Royal family gave Megan, was eerily similar to the same lack of support that they gave Princess Diana, Harry’s mother.
Which brings us to the question of this piece, and the argument, and public debate that continues between supporters of the young couple and supporters of the Queen and the Crown.
Supporters of Meghan and Harry see Meghan as the next Lady Di. That is why Harry married her and fell in love, and Harry said as much during the Oprah interview. Harry said that he “feared that history was repeating itself,” before he and Meghan left the royal family, a reference to the negative treatment his mother received from the British press, but also the feelings of loneliness and despair that Diana felt during her time as Princess.
Clearly, there are similarities between Meghan’s experiences and Diana’s, including the feelings of depression and thoughts of hurting each other; Meghan considering suicide and Diana’s bulimia.
Meghan told Oprah that she confided in some of Diana’s friends about the pressure of joining “The Firm” as she and Harry dubbed the Royal Family. Meghan, like Diana, was the outsider of the family, who came in and tried their best to fit into a family that seems cold and dysfunctional, if we are to believe “The Crown,” on Netflix. But lest us not judge, because which of our families can be described as normal?
Harry has also compared the way the British press has treated Meghan with the way they treated Diana, who died in a car crash in Paris after being chased by the Paparazzi-
In a documentary back in 2017, Harry told the BBC that, “one of the hardest things to come to terms with, is the fact that, the people that chased her into the tunnel, were the same people taking photographs of her dying on the back seat of the car.”
Because of the way his mother died, Harry is protective of his wife. Meghan has been criticized in the British press for the amount of money she was spending on renovating the couple’s cottage, and her clothing, and on the wedding.
And there was the “Fake News” printed in the British Press about the pre wedding fight between Meghan and Princess Kate, over the bridal party dresses. The press in England said that Meghan made Kate cry; in her interview with Oprah, Meghan said that it was Kate who made her cry.
For all these reasons, Harry has had enough of the hounding of his mother and his bride by the paparazzi.
But supporters of the Queen and the Royal Family, are quick to see Meghan as a 21st Century version of Wallis Simpson.
In 1936, King Edward VII took the throne, but quickly abdicated because he could not perform his royal duties, “without the woman that I love.” That woman was Wallis Simpson, an American divorcee.
Meghan was also married and divorced prior to her marriage to Harry.
Simpson was blamed for wrecking the royal line of succession, which after Edward abdication fell on King George VIII, who was Elizabeth’s father and who died at the age of 54 after enduring World War II.
Some royal watchers also claim that the dress that Meghan was wearing for her Oprah interview was similar to a dress worn by Wallis Simpson 85 years ago.
“And naturally, it didn’t take the internet long to notice a striking—and rather eerie—resemblance between Meghan’s interview outfit and one worn by Simpson in a 1936 portrait, prior to becoming the Duchess of Windsor,” wrote Diandra Malividini for Elle Australia. “Both women also endured endless public shaming and have been endlessly slammed as social climbers and manipulators, who fled the United Kingdom with their husbands.”
Other social media ‘haters’ claimed that “Her (Meghan’s) hairstyle reminds me of Wallis Simpson.”
Other connections between Meghan and Wallis come from the supposed similarities between King Edward VIII and Prince Harry. Both chose to leave the throne, or Royal Family, for the women they loved. “Both King Edward and Harry were playful, popular princes who fell in love with an independent American woman “who ends up vilified by a hostile British press,” wrote the BBC in 2020.
Another BBC story questioned the claim by Harry and Meghan that they left the Royals because they wanted to step back from the spotlight.
A BBC story questioned why Meghan and Harry left for Canada and then America, and then started granting interviews. Meghan and Harry have “revealed more about their lives now [since moving to America] than they ever did whilst in the UK”. “People are questioning a couple who moved because they wanted a quiet life, thinking, ‘Why are they courting James Corden and Oprah Winfrey and revealing details about their son?'” adds Katie. “The idea about escaping Britain and the media spotlight doesn’t ring true with a lot of people who are seeing more of Harry and Meghan than they ever did when they were in the UK.”
Two reasons for the change may be that Harry was cut off financially from his Royal funding, and that the American media is a bit softer and kinder than the Brits.
Both others in the British media see Meghan unlike Wallis Simpson, most importantly, for the racial dynamic in some of the British media attacks on Meghan. “One was a socialite, and the other is an independent, successful woman who has relied on her own income to make a living. “Wallis Simpson, of course she was mistreated by the British press, but it was never to the same extent [as Markle],” said Olivette Otele, a Black History professor at the University of Bristol in England, adding “the veiled and overt racist attacks” against Meghan, who is bi-racial, make any comparisons between her and Wallis, “completely nonsensical.”
