The relentless media scrutiny surrounding Prince Harry and Meghan Markle is echoing the darkest chapters of Princess Diana‘s life, according to her brother, Earl Spencer.
“A Cancerous Influence”: Earl Spencer on Prince Harry and Meghan’s Media Toll
Speaking to the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg at his Althorp estate just weeks after the Duke and Duchess of Sussex returned to the U.K. from California, Charles Spencer sounded an urgent alarm over the couple’s treatment in the British press.
Reflecting on his sister’s personal torment before her fatal 1997 Paris car crash, Spencer noted that the current tabloid hostility directed at Harry and Meghan bears unmistakable parallels to what Diana endured.
“If you look at an article in a tabloid about Diana or the couple that you were mentioning, Harry and Meghan, you know, they can be really, really unpleasant,” Spencer said. “And I think it would be really beholden on people to learn from Diana’s example. I’m not here to speak for Harry and Meghan, but for anyone who’s being destroyed in this way daily, it must be such a cancerous influence in their life.”
Spencer recalled witnessing Diana’s “tears of despair” firsthand, explaining that she was “very, very sensitive to criticism” and was “really brought low” by the constant barrage of press attacks following her 1981 marriage to then-Prince Charles.
While media narratives often attempt to position Spencer in Harry’s corner amid the broader family divide, the Earl pushed back on the idea of taking sides between the royal siblings.
“I’m on my deceased sister’s sons’ side, both of them,” Spencer insisted. “And if either of them wanted anything, then I’d be equally there for them.”
The comments arrive alongside heightened tensions between Spencer and Buckingham Palace ahead of the release of his memoir, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, which alleges that King Charles claimed the public would forget Diana “soon enough” in a call after her death, prompting the Palace to push back that grief can “cloud reason, affect judgement and colour memory.”
However, Spencer dismissed the response as an attempt to “smudge” the record, maintaining that the toll of public hostility on his family remains an undeniable reality.
Add us as a preferred source on Google.
Conversation