Is Meghan really hounded like Diana?

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 seven months pregnant and she is being pursued and vilified in the same way that Diana was,” he told Australian magazine WHO during an interview. Clooney warned: “And we’ve seen how that ends.”

Clooney was referring to the 1997 car crash in which Diana and Dodi Al-Fayed died as they fled the paparazzi. The tragedy forced the media to alter its conduct. Pictures obtained through “persistent pursuit” were banned and a “reasonable expectation of privacy” had to be observed.

Markle’s arrival in British public life last year put the new rules to the test with initially positive coverage giving way to stories about “Duchess Difficult”. Meghan, 37, was said to be tough on staff, with tensions reported between her and Prince William’s wife Catherine.

“Clooney’s claims 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 wrote in the Mail Online asking if Clooney was “a REAL friend or just another famous person Meghan has latched onto at the expense of those who, until recently, she professed to care about”.

But the bigger question is whether the papers’ two-decade truce with Buckingham Palace is coming to an end. –AFP