Harry:Diana would have been so angry
( and after tour, other royals were jealous )
PRINCESS Diana would have been ‘very angry’ over the way Harry and Meghan were treated, the prince claimed in the interview.
But he said he had ‘felt her presence’ as they stepped back from royal duties and believed she had seen it coming.
He suggested other members of the Royal Family were jealous of Meghan and the ease with which she carried out royal duties on her first foreign trip.
‘That brought back memories,’ he said, in an apparent reference to his mother.
He admitted Meghan was ‘well received’ at the beginning and that his father Prince Charles, brother William and sister-in-law Kate ‘were really welcoming’.
But he claimed everything ‘really changed’ when the couple announced during their 2018 tour of the South Pacific that they were expecting their first child.
They were greeted by cheering crowds as they completed 76 engagements over 16 days in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Tonga. Back home, coverage of the trip focused on the happy news that they were going to be parents.
Harry said: ‘It was also the first time that the family got to see how incredible she is at the job. And that brought back memories.’
Oprah Winfrey asked if the prince was referring to his mother and father’s 1983 tour of Australia – the subject of an episode in the fourth season of The Crown – in which Princess Diana captivated crowds and dominated the headlines.
In the Netflix drama series, Charles grows increasingly jealous of his wife and the positive reception she received.
Describing Diana as ‘bedazzling’, Miss Winfrey asked Harry: ‘So are you saying that there were hints of jealousy?’
Harry replied: ‘Look, I just wish that we would all learn from the past. But to see … how effortless it was for Meghan to come into the family so quickly in Australia and across new Zealand, Fiji and Tonga, and just be able to connect with people in such a...’
He was interrupted by Miss Winfrey, who asked him why he would not be happy about the reaction.
Harry said Meghan was ‘very much welcomed into the family, not just by the family, but by the world’.
He added: ‘Certainly by the Commonwealth. I mean, here you have one of the greatest assets to the Commonwealth that the family could have ever wished for.’
Turning to the subject of his mother again, when asked how he thought she would feel about their decision to leave the UK and their treatment since the tour, Harry replied: ‘I think she would feel very angry with how this has panned out, and very sad. But ultimately ... all she’d ever want is for us to be happy.’
The duke said that he was ‘relieved and happy’ to have Meghan by his side after being ‘cut off’ by his family because he couldn’t begin to image what it must have been like for his mother going through a similar process by herself when she divorced his father.
‘It’s been unbelievably tough for the two of us but at least we had each other,’ he added.
‘Welcomed by the world’