Princess Diana ‘Bent’ the Royal Family, Prince Harry Tries to ‘Burn It Down,’ Expert Says 

Prince Harry is following the lead of his late mother, Princess Diana, in dealing with the royal family, but with very different results, an expert says. 

Prince Harry is ‘following his mother’s playbook,’ expert says

Royal commentator Rob Shuter says that King Charles III’s second son is fighting to forge his own identity apart from his famous family. While his brother will one day sit on the throne, Harry is aiming for popularity in his own right, much like Diana. And like his mother, he wants to focus on global activism and activism, as seen through his endeavors such as the Invictus Games. But Harry lacks his mother’s light touch, some say. 

“He is absolutely following his mother’s playbook,” a source told Shuter. “The problem is he is missing what made Diana work.”

Diana wanted to “change the monarchy,” Shuter writes on his Substack, but was a royalist at heart. Harry, on the other hand, is “trying to borrow Diana’s magic while openly attacking the machine that gave it meaning.”

“Diana bent the institution,” an insider said. “Harry keeps trying to burn it down.”

Prince Harry has denied he’s out for revenge

Diana – known as the People’s Princess – championed groundbreaking causes such as AIDS awareness and land mind removal, which endeared her to many. She was also open about her struggles in a way no royal had been before. 

“This was a quite remarkable thing that she was doing,” Diana’s biographer Andrew Morton told The Associated Press in 2017. “Here she was, talking about the most intimate details of her life — about this woman called Camilla, about her eating disorders, about her half-hearted suicide attempts — to me, who was a relative stranger. … She was talking about things which no princess had ever spoken about before.”

Like his mother, Harry has championed worthy causes, including improving mental health and supporting wounded veterans. He’s also been open about his personal struggles. But that candor has been less well-received. His memoir, Spare, reportedly further strained his already fragile relationship with his father and brother, Prince William. And critics say that his comments in that book, as well as various moves by him and his wife, Meghan Markle, are spiteful and driven by a desire for revenge on those he thinks wronged him.

Unsurprisingly, Harry has a different take. Last year, he told The Guardian that he had no regrets about his tell-all, which he says was a necessary counterweight to years of negative press coverage. 

“It is not about revenge, it is about accountability” he said. 

“I know that [speaking out] annoys some people and it goes against the narrative,” the prince said. “The book? It was a series of corrections to stories already out there. One point of view had been put out and it needed to be corrected.”

“I don’t believe that I aired my dirty laundry in public,” he added. “It was a difficult message, but I did it in the best way possible. My conscience is clear.”

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