Earl Charles Spencer is drawing parallels between the media scrutiny his late sister, Princess Diana, faced and the treatment her son, Prince Harry, and his wife, Duchess Meghan, experience today.
"If you look at an article in a tabloid about Diana or … Harry and Meghan, they can be really, really unpleasant," Spencer, 62, said in a BBC interview that was released in full Sunday, Sept. 20. "And I think it would be really beholden on people to learn from Diana's example."
Prince Harry, Spencer's 42-year-old nephew, and Duchess Meghan, 45, moved back to the U.K. in late August with their two children six years after they stepped away from their senior royal roles and relocated to Meghan's home state of California. Princess Diana died Aug. 31, 1997,
after her car, driven by a man later determined to be intoxicated at the time, crashed in Paris during a pursuit by paparazzi.
Spencer recalled that his late sister, who married King Charles in 1981 and divorced him in 1996, was "really brought low by all that criticism." He added, "I suppose it's a pity when I see echoes of that now."
"I'm not here to speak for Harry and Meghan, but for anyone who's being destroyed in this way daily, it must be such a cancerous influence in their life," the earl said.
Prince Harry blamed tabloids for decision to leave the UK with Meghan
After Meghan and Harry stepped back from their royal roles in 2020, they admitted the decision they made was in part due to alleged racism from his family and the public, as well as feeling unprotected in the face of online threats and abuse.
Harry has previously been frank in revealing British tabloid culture was one of the reasons he had relocated his family from the U.K., calling the British press "toxic" to his mental health.
Over the years, the royal has waged several legal battles against media companies such as publishers for the Daily Mail, The Sun and the Daily Mirror over issues including illegally obtained private information.
Speaking to ITV News correspondent Rebecca Barry in the July 2024 documentary "Tabloids on Trial," the Duke of Sussex opened up about why he saw tabloid reports as a risk to his family's safety.
"It's still dangerous, and all it takes is one lone actor, one person who reads this stuff, to act on what they have read – and whether it's a knife or acid or whatever it is … these are things that are a genuine concern for me," Prince Harry said. "It's one of the reasons why I won't bring my wife back to this country."
The interview came after he won his phone-hacking lawsuit against the Daily Mirror's publisher, which saw a court award him around $180,000 in damages.
Earl Spencer backs police protection for Harry and Meghan
The Sussexes lost publicly funded security protection by leaving their royal roles, and Harry has taken the matter to court, where three Court of Appeal judges ultimately ruled against him.
A letter sent on behalf of King Charles in September clarified that Harry and Meghan will remain as nonworking royals, and as private citizens they will not engage in official royal engagements on the monarch's behalf.
Spencer told the BBC that he worried about the lack of police protection for Prince Harry and his family.
"I would say that I personally worry about the fifth in line to the throne who’s served in the military not having any police protection," he said. "As an uncle who’s seen his sister die in very, very preventable circumstances, I would veer towards protection."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Prince Harry, Meghan's media scrutiny echoes Princess Diana's, her brother says
