Similarities between Princess Diana and Prince Harry TV interviews

For a public figure who values ​​his privacy, media attention on Prince Harry seems to be at an all-time high recently. The Duke of Sussex published his memoirs Spare on Jan. 10, which sold more than 1.4 million copies in its first day of publication, achieving the largest first-day sales total for any nonfiction book published in Penguin Random House history.

To promote the book, the royal gave four interviews – with ITV, CBS News, Good morning Americaand The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. In keeping with the nature of his book, he doesn’t hold back during these candid conversations. This, of course, brings to mind an interview his mother, Princess Diana, did in 1995 with the BBC Panoramawhich made waves for her unvarnished thoughts on marriage and the monarchy.

As viewers may have noticed, there are some striking similarities between the mother and son interviews set over nearly three decades. Below are some of the most notable topics that both Princess Diana and Prince Harry found worthy of discussion.

In the British press and tabloid media

Princess Diana has been a figure under intense media scrutiny for years. In her BBC Panorama interview with Martin Bashir, the royal repeatedly mentioned how the British media played a large role in causing strain in her marriage and personal life.

“The scariest aspect [of being Princess of Wales] it was the media attention, because when my husband and I got engaged, we were told that the media would go away quietly, but it didn’t; and then when we were married they said it would go away quietly, but it didn’t,” she said. “And then it started to focus a lot on me and it seemed like I was on the front page of a newspaper every day […] The higher the media puts you, the bigger the drop.”

Diana also explained that the difference in media attention between her and then-Prince Charles was problematic, causing friction when they were supposed to be together. “With the media attention came a lot of jealousy, which led to a lot of complicated situations.”

Prince Harry has made similar claims – albeit in a more critical way – about the media being to blame for the breakdown of his relationship with the royal family. A major theme in his interviews was how he felt the British press had pitted his family against each other, whether it was Prince William against himself or Kate Middleton against Meghan Markle.

“I always hoped the four of us would make it. But it very quickly turned into Meghan vs. Kate. And that when it’s played out so publicly, you can’t hide from it […] that creates that competition,” he said.

Referring to the British press as an “antagonist”, Harry said: “I know the monarchy as I know it from something I was brought up in, for me it’s always been about bringing people together. And it breaks my heart that the British tabloid press has managed so successfully to create this division and this conflict at the same time as a culture war in the UK.

To Camilla Parker Bowles

One of Princess Diana’s most famous lines Panorama interview was about Camilla Parker-Bowles, now Queen Consort, as a factor in her marriage breaking up: “There were three of us in that marriage, so it was a bit crowded.”

In his 60 Minutes interview, Harry claimed that both he and William asked their father not to marry Camilla. “We didn’t think it was necessary. We thought it would do more harm than good,” he shared.

The royal also made claims about Camilla’s relationship with the British press. “She was the villain, she was the third person in the marriage, she had to rehabilitate her image… The need for her to rehabilitate her image… that made her dangerous because of the connections she made in the British press,” Harry said.

“And there was an open willingness on both sides to trade information and with a family built on hierarchy, and with her about to become queen consort, there would be people or bodies left on the street because of that.”

For mental health

Of the many bombshells she dropped in her interview, one of the most controversial topics Diana brought up was her mental health. In a brutally honest manner that was rare for the time, the royal revealed she had post-partum depression, bulimia and self-harm.

She had also shared that instead of getting help from the royal family, her mental health issues had actually made her more isolated, saying that she was perhaps “the first person that’s ever been in this family that has ever had depression [sic] or was ever openly wept.’

“It gave everyone a wonderful new label — Diana is unstable and Diana is mentally unbalanced. And unfortunately that seems to have come and gone over the years.”

In an excerpt from spare, aired during his interview with ITV, Harry paints a slightly more accepting picture of mental health in the royal family in recent years, where he recounts how he told Charles about his problems, to which the monarch replied: “I guess it’s the mine. I should have gotten you the help you needed years ago.

About parenting

Diana told Bashir how she personally went to her sons’ school to break the news of Charles’ publicized admission of infidelity and how she was most worried about her children’s reactions.

“My first concern was for the children because they were able to understand what was coming out and I wanted to protect them,” she said. “William asked me what was going on and if I could answer his questions, which I did […] he is a child who is a deep thinker, and we have not known for several years how it got into him. But I put it in gently, without resentment or anger of any kind.

In his interviews with ITV and CBS, Harry told how his father visited him in bed at Balmoral Castle to break the news of Diana’s death as gently as possible. Now a father himself, the 38-year-old has a newfound compassion for the emotional turmoil Charles must have been in at the time.

In order not to be silent

Perhaps most striking of all in this look back over the years is the similarity between mother and son, especially in their refusal to be silenced. In Diana’s interview, she said that she had problems with the royal institution.

But despite being perceived as a “threat”, Diana said her aim in doing the interview was never to seek revenge for how she may have been wronged over the years. “I’m not sitting here with resentment: I’m sitting here with sadness because a marriage didn’t work. I sit here with hope because there is a future: a future for my husband, a future for myself and a future for the monarchy,” she noted.

Similarly, Harry has reiterated through his book and interviews that he would like nothing more than to reconcile with his family – but first he needs to have frank conversations about how to improve in the future.

“I have great sympathy and even understand why some members of my family should have this connection with the tabloid press. Yes, I get it. I don’t agree with it, but I understand it. And there were decisions that happened on the other side that were incredibly painful. I wish it would stop. I want reconciliation, but first there needs to be some accountability.