Harry and Meghan- The Reception to the Netflix Show

Kevin Mazur/Getty Images

The Royals have always had a strange relationship with the media. From the first broadcast, the Queen did to her Coronation being on television in 1953 to the Royal Family documentary that got hidden in the Royal Vaults for making the Royal family look ‘Too vulnerable and normal’ in 1969, at a time of social change and political unrest.

However, we have come a long way since then.

Or have we?

Despite the efforts of multiple members of the Royal family to modernise it, some unconventional and outdated opinions still seem to be present from both the public and the Royal family themselves, perhaps a part of the turbulent history of the British monarchy.

I even experienced this when asking a family member what they thought on the day of Harry and Meghan’s wedding as we were watching the broadcast.

The opinion of the older member of my household seemed to be that “Meghan was too much like Wallis Simpson since she’s American and Divorced, so I just can’t take to her.”

My concern was that, due to the turbulent history of abdications and bad marriages the Royal family have had, people would immediately start affecting Meghan the way Prince Harry and William saw the press affect their mother, the then Princess of Wales, Diana.

It seems that is exactly what Harry, Duke of Sussex, was worried about, and according to the BBC and their six-episode series that started airing recently, is what happened.

In fact, I think it’s rather important to share what exactly the Sussexes felt, from how Harry was treated in being the secondborn heir and now fifth in line for the throne, to how he felt people were treating his Wife and how that brought up the trauma of his mother and the press.

“The direction from the Palace was don't say anything," says Harry. “But what people need to understand is, as far as a lot of the family were concerned, everything that she was being put through, they had been put through as well.

“So it was almost like a rite of passage, and some of the members of the family were like, ‘my wife had to go through that, so why should your girlfriend be treated any differently? Why should you get special treatment? Why should she be protected?’”

Why shouldn’t she be? Given how the press treated Diana, even twenty-five years after her untimely death, people are still talking about it.

Even now, the tagline “Prince Harry has revealed he is haunted by paparazzi who later took pictures of her ‘dying in the back seat’ after that car crash in Paris in 1997” in an article by The Independent in 2017, where the reader is reminded of just how Earl Spencer put it in the eulogy for his elder sister…

“It is a point to remember that of all the ironies about Diana; perhaps the greatest was this – a girl given the name of the ancient goddess of hunting was, in the end, the most hunted person of the modern age.” 

Even how Earl Spencer recalled the things they discussed as brother and sister are revealing, from after her divorce from the now King Charles, to how she felt isolated and hounded by the media.

“(She) had ‘talked endlessly’ of leaving Britain, mainly because of the treatment that she received at the hands of the newspapers. I don't think she ever understood why her genuinely good intentions were sneered at by the media, why there appeared to be a permanent quest on their behalf to bring her down. It is baffling”.

The protection she wanted for her sons from the very scrutiny and spotlight she suffered under, which was agreed on by several newspapers at the time, was then shattered by her death.

Their Uncle put it in the best way he could at the time. “She would want us today to pledge ourselves to protecting her beloved boys William and Harry from a similar fate and I do this here Diana on your behalf. We will not allow them to suffer the anguish that used regularly to drive you to tearful despair.”

Unfortunately, I think that is exactly what has happened. 

It’s no wonder that Harry and Meghan relocated to California and withdrew from Royal duty, given how similar it looked like she was being treated by the media, certainly to Harry himself and to a few others, who were keen-eyed, in the many photos of the couple, where the smiles never reached their eyes, showing fear and distress more than anything else. 

The duke simply wants to protect his children, as his mother tried to protect him and his brother, and even told the BBC that “He is really proud that his children are mixed-race, and it makes him want to ‘make the world a better place for them’- But, equally, what's most important for the two of us is to make sure that we don't repeat the same mistakes that perhaps our parents made.”

In his interview with Meghan for the Telegraph, he says perhaps it is how you are expected to act, as he admitted, "The temptation is to marry someone who fits the mould- I think for so many people in the family, especially the men, there can be a temptation or an urge to marry someone who would fit the mould as opposed to somebody who perhaps you are destined to be with.”

“The difference between making decisions with your head or heart - my mum certainly made most of her decisions, if not all of them, from her heart - and I am my mother's son.”

 

In fact, the reason why that Harry told Sky News seems perfectly understandable.

 "I feel as though being part of this family, it's my duty to uncover this exploitation and bribery which happens within our media.”

"This has always been so much bigger than us. No one knows the full truth. We know the full truth. The institution know the full truth and the media know the full truth because they've been in on it.”

"And I think anyone else in my situation would have done exactly the same thing."