Fresh side-by-side photos circulating today have once again laid bare Meghan Markle’s deeply unsettling fixation on the late Princess of Wales. In one set of images, the Duchess of Sussex is captured covering her mouth with her hand in an almost identical “shy” gesture Diana made decades earlier. In another, Meghan poses with a young girl in pink glasses, mirroring a famous shot of Diana cradling a child with spectacles. Critics are calling it what it is: not homage, not coincidence, but a full-blown psychotic obsession that has defined her public life for years.
This is not new. For nearly a decade Meghan has systematically cosplayed her husband’s dead mother – the same woman she never met – while Prince Harry has stood by, enabling the spectacle and even publicly comparing his wife to Diana. From magazine photoshoots that recreate Diana’s iconic cross-legged Vogue poses, to birthday pool jumps staged to match Diana’s 1997 Saint-Tropez leap, to dozens of outfit replicas documented by royal fashion accounts, the pattern is relentless and grotesque.
Body language experts and royal watchers have repeatedly flagged the behaviour as calculated and creepy. After Meghan’s recent 45th-birthday pool photos, one expert stated the near-identical pose “must have been pre-planned,” noting Meghan’s tense, controlling body language stood in stark contrast to Diana’s free-spirited energy. Online reaction has been scathing: “She’s 45 acting like 12 and it’s not so cute.” “Psychopath expression.” “She’s exhibiting some kind of obsession disorder.” “Look Harry, I’m just like your mother.”
Harry’s role is equally damning. He has repeatedly invoked his mother’s memory to shield and elevate Meghan, claiming in interviews and documentaries that she possesses Diana’s compassion and empathy. Yet the evidence points to something far darker: a wife who treats the late Princess of Wales as a character to inhabit, and a husband who not only tolerates the mimicry but benefits from the narrative that history is “repeating itself.” The couple’s Netflix projects, carefully staged humanitarian trips, and constant media leaks have turned Diana’s legacy into a marketing tool for two people who abandoned royal duty the moment the spotlight dimmed.
Royal sources and commentators have long described the behaviour as “Project Diana” – a deliberate rebranding effort that has spectacularly backfired. The British public adored Diana. They do not adore Meghan. Every forced parallel only highlights the difference: one was a natural, if troubled, people’s princess; the other is a Hollywood actress still performing for the cameras, using a dead woman’s image as props.
The latest photos are not subtle. The hand-over-mouth pose, the child-with-glasses recreation – these are not accidents. They are the latest entries in a long, documented catalogue of imitation that has left even former supporters uncomfortable. At 45, Meghan Markle continues to chase the ghost of a woman who died when she was a teenager. Prince Harry continues to enable it. The result is not touching. It is disturbing, self-serving, and an insult to Diana’s memory.
The Sussexes can keep staging their cosplay. The rest of the world has stopped applauding.
