Meghan Markle Visited Princess Diana’s Grave to Ask for “Clarity and Guidance,” Prince Harry Writes

(Image credit: Getty)

published 7 January 2023

In a revelation from his upcoming tell-all, Spare, Prince Harry reveals that, during a visit he and wife Meghan Markle made to the grave of his late mother, Princess Diana, Meghan asked Diana for clarity and guidance amidst ongoing press scrutiny in the U.K.

Harry and Meghan took a trip to Althorp House in Northamptonshire—where Diana is buried—to honor the twentieth anniversary of his mother’s death in a Parisian car crash in 1997, Us Weekly reports. During the visit, Harry left Meghan alone for a private moment with the mother-in-law she never knew.

“When I returned, she was on her knees with her eyes closed and her palms flat against the stone,” Harry writes, adding that Meghan was asking the late Princess of Wales for “clarity and guidance.”

Meghan’s request came as she “tackled the public scrutiny from the U.K. press due to her relationship with Harry,” Us Weekly reports, adding that Meghan “faced major obstacles during her time overseas.”

Harry has likened Meghan’s treatment by the U.K. press to his late mother’s experience with the media, and, in the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s six-part Netflix docuseries, Harry & Meghan, Harry compared his wife to his mother, saying “so much of what Meghan is, and how she is, is so similar to my mum. She has the same compassion, the same empathy, she has the same confidence, she has this warmth about her.”

Harry had two serious relationships prior to meeting Meghan in 2016—with Chelsy Davy and Cressida Bonas—and he said in Harry & Meghan, of finding the right person, “I remember thinking, ‘How can I ever find someone who is willing and capable to be able to withstand all the baggage that comes with being with me?’ Every relationship that I had, within a matter of weeks or months, was splatted all over the newspapers, and that person’s family was harassed, and their lives turned upside-down.”

Spare will be released in full this Tuesday, January 10.

Rachel Burchfield is a writer, editor, and podcaster whose primary interests are fashion and beauty, society and culture, and, most especially, the British Royal Family and other royal families around the world. She serves as Marie Claire’s Senior Celebrity and Royals Editor and has also contributed to publications like Allure, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar, InStyle, People, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and W, among others. Before taking on her current role with Marie Claire, Rachel served as its Weekend Editor and later Royals Editor. She is the cohost of Podcast Royal, a show that was named a top five royal podcast by The New York Times. A voracious reader and lover of books, Rachel also hosts I’d Rather Be Reading, which spotlights the best current nonfiction books hitting the market and interviews the authors of them. Rachel frequently appears as a media commentator, and she or her work has appeared on outlets like NBC’s Today Show, ABC’s Good Morning America, CNN, and more.