Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have a love-hate relationship with the press. One minute they enjoyed interacting with them, the next minute they want the media to give them more privacy.
With that said, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have been criticized heavily for this. However, they are not the only ones in the royal family who have this tricky relationship with the press. In fact, Princess Diana did the same thing as she reportedly courted the press but complained about them at the same time.
“She once said she was hunted and haunted by the media, but you can’t court the media and expect them to not be there all the time,” royal expert Dickie Arbiter said in the Amazon Prime documentary Royalty Up Close: The Photography of Kent Gavin. “You can’t pick and choose. You can’t cherry-pick.”
In 1997, Princess Diana was enjoying a vacation with Dodi Al Fayed, Prince William, and Prince Harry. Since her sons got upset because they saw reporters and photographers taking photos of the Princess of Wales and her boyfriend, she approached the photographers and asked them why they were there, photographer Gavin recalled.
Despite knowing that photographers were surrounding them, Princess Diana stepped out with Prince Harry just 15 minutes after the confrontation. The pair ran around the beach as photographers took numerous shots of them. If the People's Princess didn't like the attention, she should have stayed inside, or demanded the press to leave the premises — but she didn't.
Piers Morgan also believed that Princess Diana was playing games with the media. The day that Prince Charles announced his relationship with Camilla, the press received a text message asking if they will be at the beach at 9 a.m. where Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed were vacationing.
As it turned out, Princess Diana wanted the media to captured something. “The next day she came out and began cartwheeling across the beach – it was one-nil Diana,” Morgan said.
Now, it seems like Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are falling in the same trap as Princess Diana. After courting the media during their engagement and the royal wedding, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex now want them to give them space.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle even shared their struggles being on the spotlight in the ITV documentary that was released in October last year. After that, the royal couple sued a couple of British tabloids from breaching their privacy.
