Prince Harry is committed to making his mother, the late Princess Diana, proud. While this is a wonderful sentiment for anyone who has lost a parent, what he believes that should entail has recently come into question. The Daily Mail’s Editor at Large, Richard Kay, recently slammed the Duke of Sussex for suggesting that he was continuing his mother’s work by starting a “war” with the media, 27 years after a horrific car crash resulted in her untimely death.
“This idea that [Princess Diana] didn’t have relationships with the media who were writing about her is pure and utter nonsense, and Harry knows that,” Kay told Palace Confidential.”Diana made a point of getting to know many journalists. So to suggest that he is doing his mother’s work in taking on the media here is not true.” He also pointed out that the late Princess took a stand when she needed to because her complaints were valid.
“I mean, she had a very ambivalent attitude towards the press,” Kay continued. “She would complain about stories when they were demonstrably wrong, as anyone should, and she extracted apologies from newspapers when they heard she took legal action against photographers when they compromised her space. According to the editor, Diana made a point of getting to know “the broadsheet press that was part of her modus operandi” and that “Harry has not gone down that road at all.”
Kay’s comments come after Prince Harry appeared at The New York Times Dealbook Summit and implied that the media was to blame for his troubles. The topic came up when he was asked to clarify his “war on the media” statement from his 2023 memoir Spare. “I think again… when you’re kind of trapped within this bubble where it kind of feels like there’s no way out, and what happened to my mom and the fact that I was a kid and I felt helpless there becomes the in inner turmoil,” he said.
“The inner battle, especially at a young age, there was clearly nothing that I could do,” the Duke continued. “I felt helpless. One of my biggest weaknesses is feeling helpless. It was something that I knew that I couldn’t fix, and it was also a situation that I knew I couldn’t get out of.” Prince Harry went on to state that his biggest worry was that history was going repeat itself and that either he, his wife, Meghan Markle, or his kids would also meet their end the way his mother did.
The Duke of Sussex seemed to have the freedom to say whatever he liked during the interview and none of his statements were questioned by event host and New York Times columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin. This was a sticking point for Kay. “Harry was largely unchallenged by many of the sweeping statements he made about all sorts of things, but that was obviously a decision taken by the hosts,” he told Palace Confidential.
According to Kay, Harry would like to believe that his mother would have “championed his attacks on the media in particular because she had such a torrid time of it herself.” Sadly, all humans have selective memory, and royalty is no exception. Over the years, facts become blurred by the way we want to remember things. And in some cases, people like to recall a version of events that best suits their current agenda. The jury is still out on whether or not Harry is guilty of this.
Published: Dec 6, 2024 09:09 am