Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, had conversations with her husband, Prince Harry, about the kind of life they live as royals. As revealed in the documentary Harry & Meghan: An African Journey, she apparently said that they are surviving and not thriving amid the invasive media scrutiny.
According to royal biographer Angela Levin, this statement was like a knife on Prince Harry's heart. When Duchess Meghan expressed her sadness over the way she's been depicted in the British tabloid media as a royal it, apparently, triggered some old wounds and feelings of failure from Prince Harry.
Meghan Markle said that she "never thought royal life would be easy" when she married Prince Harry in 2018. However, she said she was naive to think that the British tabloid press would be fair.
The new mom shared that she told her husband many times that the point of life is not to survive challenges and struggles. It's also important to feel happy. But, how can they be happy when bad press follows them around?
Meghan also said that she tried to shove off the negative press by adopting the "sensibilities of a British stiff upper lip." However, she confessed that this felt more damaging to her mental health.
Levin said that Prince Harry might have been feeling that he's failing his wife as much as he has blamed himself for failing Princess Diana. The royal expert said that Prince Harry desired to protect his mother as a young boy that he felt he was partly at fault for her death.
Before Princess Diana's death, Prince Harry spent little time talking to his mother about what she was going through. That, according to Prince William's brother, has been hovering over him to this day.
Prince Harry has mentioned his mom a number of times in the documentary interview. He admitted that the press hounding on him and his wife with "every click of the camera" reminds him of what Princess Diana had to go through. Thus, emboldened by his wife and mother, he is trying to prevent another tragedy in the family by sticking up to the media and filing lawsuits against three news outlets that have written about the royals unfavorably.
Friends of Prince Harry said that he has "never been stronger" after expressing his honest feelings about this whole controversy. It was, apparently, another reaction to the perception that he and Meghan Markle are in a fragile state.
