Princess Diana Supporters Who Are Surprisingly Willing to Criticize Meghan

Some of Princess Diana's closest supporters have been surprisingly willing to criticize Meghan Markle on subjects including her Oprah Winfrey interview and her fashion choices at Queen Elizabeth II's Platinum Jubilee.

Prince Harry has drawn comparisons between his wife and his mother on several occasions, including during the CBS tell-all in March 2021.

"My biggest concern was history repeating itself and I've said that before on numerous occasions, very publicly," Harry told Oprah Winfrey. "And what I was seeing was history repeating itself. But more, perhaps.

"Or definitely far more dangerous because then you add race in and you add social media in. And when I'm talking about history repeating itself, I'm talking about my mother."

However, not everyone who was close to Princess Diana has exclusively taken Harry and Meghan's side in the royal rift.

Princess Diana's Wedding Dress Designer

One of the most recent people to speak out regarding Meghan was David Emanuel, the fashion designer who created Princess Diana's wedding dress with his then-wife Elizabeth Emanuel in 1981.

Asked recently about Meghan, he replied: "You mean the American woman? I can't utter the name now," the Daily Mail reported.

He also suggested Meghan was "channeling" Wallis Simpson, the American divorcee whose relationship with King Edward VIII led to him abdicating the throne in 1936. The saga caused a constitutional crisis in the process.

And Emanuel did not make much of Meghan's outfit at a Platinum Jubilee church service: "I will stick my neck out here but she looked as if she was in a nurse's uniform."

Princess Diana's Former Police Bodyguard

Ken Wharfe was Princess Diana's Metropolitan Police protection officer and also guarded Prince William and Prince Harry when they were children.

Quoted in the Daily Mirror in June 2021, the retired police officer questioned whether Meghan and Harry's marriage would survive their time in California.

He said: "Now trapped in La La land, what happens when the Hollywood trappings run dry?"

He added: "Will the palace welcome back their Prince? Of course, with or without his wife."

Prince Harry's lawsuit over the U.K. government's decision to remove his police protection also went down badly with Wharfe.

"Police protection should not be for sale," he wrote in the Daily Mail. "Prince Harry has an outrageous cheek, demanding a full royal security detail to be reinstated when he visits the U.K. For the Queen and her government to accede to his demand and set this precedent is unthinkable.

"Harry is now a private citizen, domiciled in a foreign country – entirely by his own choice. None of the royals wanted this to happen, least of all his father and brother, but it has," Wharfe added. "If he is granted the services of the Metropolitan's royal protection squad, for which he has magnanimously offered to pay, every visiting Hollywood star and wealthy celebrity may as well expect the same privileges."

Princess Diana's Biographer Andrew Morton

Journalist Andrew Morton changed the course of royal history when his 1992 biography Diana: Her True Story exposed Prince Charles' affair with Camilla Parker-Bowles for the first time.

The book was based on the princess' first-hand account of experiencing bulimia against the backdrop of her husband's infidelity after she smuggled tape-recorded confessions out of Kensington Palace through a friend.

However, when Morton's 2018 biography Meghan: A Hollywood Princess was re-released with new chapters in 2021, it contained both support and some significant challenges to the account the duchess presented to Oprah.

Meghan told CBS: "I mean, there was a day that one of the members of the family, she came over, and she said, 'why don't you just lay low for a little while, because you are everywhere right now'.

"And I said, 'I've left the house twice in four months. I'm everywhere, but I am nowhere'. And from that standpoint, I continued to say to people, 'I know there's an obsession with how things look, but has anyone talked about how it feels? Because right now, I could not feel lonelier.'"

"She also claimed that over one four-month period, she had only twice left the house, again indicating that she was a lonely prisoner hidden away by the men in grey," Morton wrote. "Yet she was seen out on numerous occasions: dinner and lunch appointments in Notting Hill, beauty treatments in Kensington and various shopping trips. Though she was snapped by the paparazzi, British newspapers declined to buy photographs of these excursions."

Princess Diana's Journalist Friend

Richard Kay, a columnist for the Daily Mail and former royal correspondent, was a close friend of Diana's who she trusted to brief her on the content of British newspapers and how they were likely to handle certain stories.

He was also among the last people to speak to her over the phone before her death in a 1997 Paris car crash, and gave evidence to the Metropolitan Police's investigation into her death.

Kay is also perhaps the least surprising among Diana's former circle to criticize Meghan given his role at the newspaper group the duke and duchess have sued more than any other.

However, his columns on the royal tend to be a far cry from the visceral broadsides the Sussexes have come to expect from other commentators, such as Dan Wootton or Piers Morgan.

A recent July article by Kay read: "Five o'clock in the morning is an unusual time for a member of the Royal Family to be issuing instructions for staff. It smacks of panic and suggests an overly controlling nature. It is certainly anti-social.

"But in the summer of 2018 junior employees at Kensington Palace were becoming wearily familiar with these dawn emails and texts from the newly married Duchess of Sussex.

"Palace officials were at first quick to offer reassurance: part of Meghan's working day meant connecting with contacts in the U.S., they said, when she had to be at her desk because of the time difference, hence the early messages to staff. They also talked of 'cultural differences' in management style. Americans, they suggested, were more direct.

"Meanwhile, friends of the former actress were gushing to People magazine that Meghan had always prided herself on being a good boss. On one occasion, they related, she had paid for an ice cream stand to come to provide free treats for the staff. But over time these explanations seemed increasingly threadbare.

"By October the glow of her and Prince Harry's May wedding had long since faded and insiders were openly describing Meghan as 'Duchess Difficult'."