Prince Harry Was Apparently “Disappointed” That Princess Diana’s Sisters, Best Friend Couldn’t See the Parallels He Saw Between Diana and Meghan Markle

When he fell in love with Meghan Markle, Prince Harry drew a number of comparisons between her and his late mother, Princess Diana. Both women he adored, Harry was “disappointed,” a royal author said, that Diana’s siblings and best friend apparently failed to see the similarities between the two, The Mirror reports.

In his book Revenge: Meghan, Harry, and the War Between the Windsors, Tom Bower writes that “not only did Earl Charles Spencer [Diana’s only brother], Lady Sarah McCorquodale, and Baroness Jane Fellowes [Diana’s two sisters], and her close friend Julia Samuel fail to see the similarities between Meghan and Harry’s late mother—as the prince reportedly hoped—but they thought that she would struggle to fit in with the royal family,” The Mirror reports. At one point, Bower writes, Spencer was even asked to speak to Harry about his relationship with Meghan. 

“Since the Vanity Fair article had increased the Cambridges’ [William and Catherine’s titles at the time] suspicion of Meghan, the actress discovered that her neighbor in Kensington Palace had even less time for her,” Bower writes. “By then, Harry had introduced Meghan to Diana’s two sisters, Jane and Sarah, and her best friend Julia Samuel. Harry assumed that Diana’s family and friends would see a similarity between Diana and his fiancée. Both, he said, shared the same problems. He was disappointed. No one agreed that his vulnerable mother had anything in common with his girlfriend. More discomforting for him, they thought Meghan would not fit in with the royal family.”

Bower writes that when Spencer went to speak to Harry at Prince William’s request, the three times-married Spencer cautioned Harry to slow down a bit. “His advice provoked a bitter reaction,” Bower writes.

Revenge is on sale now.