Why A Body Language Expert Is Comparing Meghan Markle To Princess Diana
The similarities between Princess Diana and Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, keep growing. While both Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge and wife to Prince William, and Meghan have been compared to Princess Diana, it's Meghan who is seen to really embody Diana's spirit.
This became especially clear after Prince Harry and Meghan stepped down from their royal duties and moved their growing family to California. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, in a move out of Princess Diana's playbook, gave their side of the story after the move in a tell-all interview with Oprah.
The similarities between what Diana said during her interview with Martin Bashir in 1995 and what Meghan said in 2021 were shocking. As Vogue points out, Diana told Bashir that she thought she knew what she signed up for. Meghan, too, "didn't fully understand what the job was." It wasn't like the Duchess of Sussex hadn't done her research, either. According to the BBC, she actually reached out to friends of Diana before she married Harry to find out what transitioning into royal life would be like. For Meghan, no one would know what she was getting into better than they could. Still, what she and Diana both experienced was nothing like they imagined.
But it's not just their experience inside the royal family or sense of fashion that the two women share. Body language experts have been weighing in on just how much Meghan embodies the mother-in-law she was never able to meet.
Meghan and Diana both thought they knew what they signed up for
The interview Meghan Markle and Prince Harry had with Oprah Winfrey highlighted a number of shocking and heartbreaking similarities between the duchess and Princess Diana.
The most shocking personal story Meghan shared was about her mental health and how she and Harry were treated when they asked for help. She admitted to Oprah that when she was joining the royal family, Meghan was under the impression she was also gaining the support of the family. What she experienced, though, was the exact opposite. "I did anything they told me to do. Of course I did," the Duchess of Sussex told Oprah, "because it was also through the lens of 'and we'll protect you.' My regret is believing them when they said I would be protected" (via E! News). Making this even worse is that Kate Middleton doesn't defend Meghan in the press.
For the Princess of Wales, the experience was no different. According to E! News, Diana told biographer Andrew Morton that after she and Prince Charles became engaged, she "cried because [she] had no support from Charles and no support from the Palace press office."
But when both women proved they could stand on their own, this also was met with disapproval. For both women, the public response to their Australian tours was a watershed moment. "It all changed after the Australia tour," Harry told Oprah during their 2021 interview. "It was the first time the family got to see how incredible she was at the job. And that brought back memories" via Vogue).
How the royal family handled Diana and Meghan's mental health
Here, Prince Harry is referring to the memory of the public's love of Princess Diana and how apparent it was during her tour of Australia with Prince Charles. According to Vogue, four weeks of Diana being in the spotlight brought out Charles' resentment and jealousy. "And you feel low about it," she told Martin Bashir during their 1995 interview, "instead of feeling happy and sharing it, With the media attention came a lot of jealousy."
Diana, no stranger to feeling low, explained to Bashir that she felt like the first person in the royal family to struggle with depression. It made her sympathetic to a point. She admitted that if you've never seen something before, it can be hard to know how to support someone. Still, she added, "When no one listens to you, or you feel no one's listening to you, all sorts of things start to happen" (via Vogue).
When Harry started to see Meghan struggle, he got scared of history repeating itself. "When I'm talking about history repeating itself, I'm talking about my mother," the duke told Oprah during their 2021 interview. "When you see something happening in the same kind of way, anybody would ask for help" (via The New York Times). Meghan struggled with suicidal thoughts and self-harm, just as Diana had, but when both she and Harry asked the family for help, The New York Times reports they were told, "This is how it is. This is just how it is."
Body language notes this major difference between Meghan and Diana
As similar as Princess Diana and Meghan Markle are, they have one major difference: their marriage. Diana and Prince Charles had the antithesis of a fairy tale relationship, full of jealousy, resentment, and infidelity. Meghan's relationship with Harry, just based on body language alone, is the exact opposite.
The holiday card the couple sent out in 2021 is often compared to a picture of Princess Diana holding Prince William. Body language expert Judi James told Express that "[t]he body language that Meghan uses with her baby here is an almost direct and perfect copy of a pose by Diana with her own baby many years before." In the photos, both women are smiling, looking up at their children. The major difference is that, while Diana was pictured alone, the Duchess of Sussex is shown leaning back against Prince Harry.
Similarities were brought up most recently about the couple's appearances at the Invictus Games being held at The Hague. Body language expert Darren Stanton told Marie Claire that the duchess's interaction with the public is extremely reminiscent of Diana. "As she stepped out with Harry," Stanton explains, "Meghan was seen wearing a true expression of happiness — again holding hands with Harry, with the pair appearing incredibly tactile over the weekend." Body language experts have compared Diana and Meghan's parenting styles, too, so this analysis is nothing new for the duchess.
For Santon, and many others, Meghan and Harry, unlike Charles and Diana, appear to be "a very strong unit together and they're not afraid to show the world how they are very much still in love." After all, Harry can't stop publicly gushing over Meghan.