Harry and Meghan’s new Netflix documentary continues to cause debate online today as viewers catch up on the three episodes aired on Thursday morning, with three more to come next week. One of the most poignant parts of the series? Watching Harry recount his memory of his mother, Princess Diana, and the harrowing relationship she had with tabloid media.
They were scenes that many would find emotional: clips of Diana playing with her sons, being hounded by paparazzi and later, Harry and William walking behind her coffin in front of an emotional British public. But there’s one clip included in the documentary that’s causing the most controversy online, the BBC Panorama footage of Diana’s with Martin Bashir in 1995.
Controversy because, after an independent inquiry into how the interview was secured found Bashir guilty of deceit and breaching BBC editorial conduct, the BBC promised never to broadcast it again. ‘It is my firm view that this Panorama programme holds no legitimacy and should never be aired again,’ Prince William said at the time. ‘It effectively established a false narrative which, for over a quarter of a century, has been commercialised by the BBC and others…the BBC’s failures contributed significantly to her fear, paranoia and isolation that I remember from those final years with her.’
In September this year, BBC director-general Tim Davie said: ‘Now we know about the shocking way that the interview was obtained, I have decided that the BBC will never show the programme again, nor will we license it in whole or part to other broadcasters. It does of course remain part of the historical record and there may be occasions in the future when it will be justified for the BBC to use short extracts for journalistic purposes, but these will be few and far between and will need to be agreed at executive committee level and set in the full context of what we now know about the way the interview was obtained. I would urge others to exercise similar restraint.’
How could William react to the Panorama footage being used by Netflix then? According to Katie Nicholl, royal expert and author of The New Royals, not well.
William was very protective of his mother's memory too.
‘I think William will be very angry that footage from the panorama interview was used because he's lobbied hard to have that to ensure that that footage is never seen again,’ Nicholl told Grazia. ‘I also suspect that given Harry is using the narrative around his mother so heavily, William was also very protective of his mother's memory. You know, she was mother to both of them, and I think there'll be a sensitivity there over that too. Harry saying “I am my mother’s son”, well so was William.’
The circumstances surrounding Diana’s death appear integral to Harry’s own perceptions about the press, with episode one detailing how much he despised tabloid media growing up and when he saw negative narratives forming about his wife and children, he was terrified the same thing would happen to his family once again.
‘It’s very evident that there is still trauma from losing his mother at such a young age, and he was terrified of history repeating itself,’ Katie explains. ‘His past has shaped the man he is today and his mother has left a deep impression on him. We see that through his philanthropic work, the causes that he's continued to champion for Diana and he himself points out the similarities between his wife and his own mother.’
That was the most compelling part for her, Katie says, hearing Harry compare Meghan and Diana so much. ‘I thought that was incredibly powerful, a very telling statement and I don’t think many people have looked at this relationship and seen that he does turn to Meghan for something of a maternal role,’ she says. ‘She’s very protective of him and he's obviously very proud of her.’
But, according to Katie, it’s difficult to draw direct parallels between Meghan and Diana’s experiences due to the way the law has changed on media intrusion since Diana’s death.
‘The problem with their version of events is that Meghan did not get the sort of paparazzi intrusion and harassment that Diana did,’ Katie explains. ‘Netflix struggled so much to get footage of Harry and Megan being hounded by the paparazzi that they had to use other photographs and video footage, because in England, at least during their time, there wasn't that sort of media intrusion.’
Of course, the hounding Harry speaks of also refers to social media and the incessant reporting of sensationalist, ‘leaked and planted’ stories about his wife. There is then, an understanding that Harry lives with the fear instilled in him from childhood about the length tabloids can go to get a story.
‘I think what is being set up is this justification for Harry taking on the media and what he deems as unacceptable behaviour by them,’ Katie concludes. ‘The most impactful passages are when they're talking about the intrusion by the media – from Doria [Ragland] too – and when you hear about it from their point of view it’s clearly very frightening. I think a lot of people will have sympathy for the situation that they were in when they were just trying to conduct a relationship that was in its early stages.’