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Meghan Markle hounded like Diana? Hardly, British papers say
LONDON, Feb 14, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Could Meghan Markle really face the same
fate as Princess Diana? Britain’s newspapers on Wednesday angrily challenged
US actor George Clooney’s claim that their treatment of Prince Harry’s wife
resembled the hounding of his late mother.
Clooney, who attended the couple’s wedding last year, on Tuesday stirred
up a hornet’s nest of discontent by accusing the London tabloids of giving
the new Duchess of Sussex “a raw deal”.
“She’s a woman who is seven months pregnant and she is being pursued and
vilified and chased in the same way that Diana was,” the Hollywood superstar
told Australian magazine WHO during an interview in Los Angeles.
“It’s history repeating itself,” Clooney warned. “And we’ve seen how that
ends.”
The ending Clooney referred to was the 1997 car crash in Paris in which
Diana died along with Dodi Al-Fayed as they fled the paparazzi.
The tragedy triggered mass public mourning in the UK and soul searching on
the part of the press.
It turned royal reporters into villains and forced the media to
significantly alter its code of conduct.
Pictures obtained through “persistent pursuit” were banned and a
“reasonable expectation of privacy” had to be observed.
The arrival in British public life last year of the mixed-race US actress
put these new rules to the test with initially positive coverage slowly
giving way to stories about “Duchess Difficult”. Meghan, 37, was said to have
been tough on staff, with tensions also reported between her and Prince
William’s wife Catherine.
Following months of unwanted publicity focused on rifts with her family,
the Mail on Sunday also published a letter she wrote to her estranged father
begging him to “stop lying” and “exploiting my relationship with my husband”.
“You’re taking a letter from a daughter to a father and broadcasting it
everywhere,” Clooney fumed. “It’s irresponsible.”
– ‘Utter fantasy’ –
It did not take long for the British media to tell Clooney to keep his
thoughts to himself.
“George Clooney’s claims of Meghan Markle and Diana are utter fantasy,”
The Times declared.
The Telegraph ran a story under the headline: “Why Meghan isn’t the new
Diana.”
And celebrity TV presenter Piers Morgan penned an article in the Mail
Online asking if Clooney was “a REAL friend or just another famous person
Meghan’s latched onto at the expense of those who, until recently, she
professed to care about”.
Most of the recent headlines have been about Meghan’s father.
But the bigger question facing British society as a whole is whether the
papers’ two-decade truce with Buckingham Palace is coming to an end.
Veteran royal watcher and biographer Penny Junor said the cases of Meghan
and Diana could hardly be more different.
“I haven’t heard that Meghan is complaining of the paparazzi. I’ve never
heard anyone talk about that being a problem,” Junor told AFP.
“I think (Meghan) is able to go about her life and walk in the park and be
in restaurants and be a normal person without a dozen paparazzi following
her,” she said.
“Diana was not able to do that.”
Both Junor and Morgan accused Meghan and her father of courting trouble by
trying to settle scores through the press.
The Mail on Sunday’s letter followed an article featuring several of
Meghan’s friends in People magazine entitled: “The truth about Meghan
Markle’s dad.”
Morgan said it was “staggering” that “Meghan thinks the way to resolve
this bitter dispute is to unleash her friends to attack her dad in People
magazine”.
Junor recalled that Diana also used the press by giving private briefings
to favourite reporters.
“That’s a very dangerous thing to do and it did eventually blow up in her
face,” Junor said.
But she insisted that times had changed.
“I think there was a lot of naivety in the Diana era,” she said.
“I think everybody has gotten much wiser to the media and how destructive
the media can be.”
BSS/AFP/ARS/1716 hrs