Princess Diana Would Have “Loved” and “Embraced” Meghan Markle, Former Royal Butler Says

Had she lived to meet her, Princess Diana would have loved and embraced her daughter-in-law Meghan Markle, former royal butler and close Diana confidante Paul Burrell told The Mirror. Diana died in 1997 at just 36 years old; it would be another 19 years before Diana’s younger son, Prince Harry—only 12 at the time of her death—would meet Meghan in 2016. The couple married in 2018 when, for context, Meghan herself was 36 years old.

Burrell believes Diana would have taught Meghan how to “survive” in the confines of the royal family, Burrell said, and would have taught her lessons that he said could have extended her time as a working royal, with the former Princess of Wales taking Meghan “under her wing and educat[ing] her” after Meghan first began dating Harry.

“I think Diana would have embraced Meghan [and] I think she would have tried to understand her,” Burrell said. Diana loved America and had even been planning to start a new life in California just before she died and had picked out a home in Malibu for herself and her two sons, Burrell said. “Diana loved America—she loved Americans,” he said. (Meghan is American, hailing from California, where she, Harry, and their two children now live.) “And she understood it was a different culture.” The Malibu property she had her eye on was a “white building clinging to the side of a cliff” not far from where Harry and Meghan have settled in Montecito, Burrell said.

“Diana was thrilled at the thought of going to live for some of the year in America,” he said. “There was no way she would have decanted full-time because she was proud of her association with the royal family. But she thought a bolthole as somewhere to escape to, she would love to escape to America.”

Burrell said Harry “must have known” about his mother’s “fondness” for the U.S. before he met Meghan. “In his own way, he’s thought, ‘Well, Meghan’s American, and my mum would have loved Meghan,’” Burrell said.

Burrell said his close friend would have welcomed Meghan with open arms: “Yes, she would have loved Meghan,” he said. “She would have embraced her. She wouldn’t have agreed with everything that’s happened since, but in the initial days she would have encouraged her, educated her, and embraced her.”

If Diana would have been alive, Harry and Meghan’s 2020 step back as working members of the royal family might not have happened, Burrell said. “If Diana had been here, she would have taught Meghan how to survive, because one thing Diana knew was how to survive,” he said. “She would have said to her, ‘Be careful. There are lots of snakes in this jungle.’ Meghan never had that in the royal family. There wasn’t a book for her to read on how to be a royal princess. There were no rules written down. She had to learn as Diana had to learn by being thrown in the deep end.”

With Diana’s help, Burrell is convinced Meghan would have gone on to become a valuable member of the royal family. “What a pity that Diana wasn’t here to educate her daughter-in-law, because things would have been so different,” he said. “In this whole equation, Diana is the missing piece, and if she had been part of it, none of this would have happened.”