‘She feels it’s a duty’: Meghan Markle determined to prove she’s following in Diana’s footsteps as much as Kate

Princess Diana’s unconventional approach to royal life, combined with her humanism, continues to impact the British royal family nearly thirty years after her tragic passing. She certainly presented an ideal worth living up to, so it would be no surprise if her two daughters-in-law, Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle, seek to lead by similar examples.

Unfortunately, cognitive bias is a thing, and Markle in particular is having a hard time as few are willing to give her even a pinch of grace. Nevertheless, a Royal insider has suggested that Markle will — out of principle — not be retreating from the spotlight any time soon.

Per Closer, the insider claims that while “people seem to want [Meghan] to sit home and stay out of sight,” Markle simply “doesn’t want to always be outshone.”

She feels it’s a duty of hers to show everybody that she’s just as much Diana’s daughter-in-law as Kate is.

Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as using your resources and platform to bring positive change and good vibes into the world. If the public has decided that everything you do is shallow, the aforementioned changes and vibes will be “interpreted in a negative way.”

When Harry and Meghan gave up their official royal duties, they were told that everyone can serve in their own way, and this is their way of serving. Yet it seems that no matter what they do— even more so, everything Meghan does— will be interpreted in a negative way. It feels like an uphill battle, and the fact that people found fault with her helping out victims of a wildfire makes it clear that she can’t win, and that is very disheartening.

For context, Prince Harry and Markle showed up to help with relief efforts in the wake of the Los Angeles wildfires last month, only for the couple to be lambasted with accusations of being “disaster tourists” and only showing up as a photo op. This, despite such actions as opening the doors of their California home to displaced citizens, participating in charity efforts, among other such humanitarian acts.

Moreover, the wildfires led Markle to delay the release of her Netflix show With Love, Meghan so that she could focus on relief efforts, only for her haters to pull off the mental gymnastics routine of the century by comparing that to her willingness to do that bombshell of an Oprah interview, despite how much it hurt the Royal Family’s feelings.

As the source put it, it’s well and truly an uphill battle. Meghan’s drive to prove herself is contested and perhaps nullified by the seeming fact that the public — who she is ostensibly trying to prove herself to — is committed to believing she’s a monster.

It’s moments like this that make you remember that Princess Diana never had to live through the age of social media, where anyone with a pulse and keyboard could throw in their not-even-two cents on whatever piece of information the algorithm shoved in their faces. Would that have changed the image that Markle is determined to live up to today? Globalized public scrutiny, after all, is a hell of a house of cards.