In the fourth season of The Crown (opens in new tab), after Princess Diana reveals her deep dissatisfaction with her marriage to Prince Charles, the Queen, Princess Margaret, Princess Anne, and the Queen Mother discuss Diana's inability to fit into the royal family.

At first, the Queen casts doubt on Diana. We are a rather strict family. We don't give much praise, love or appreciation. She asks the group, "Perhaps people like Diana are best suited to connect with the modern world, and by changing with the times in this way, the royal family can survive and remain relevant.

But the Queen Mother is not so sympathetic. She says, "Diana is an immature girl, and in time she will give up the struggle, give up the fight, and bend, as Philip did, as everyone does. And when she bends, she will fit in," she says." And if she does not bend, "Then what will you do?

"She will break," Margaret answers with foresight.

With a few tweaks, this scene could easily have been set decades later about Princess Diana's daughter-in-law, Meghan Markle.

When Harry and Meghan announced their engagement in 2017, the media narrative was much like the Queen's words in The Crown. Meghan, a feminist, transracial American divorcée who would only be joining the royal family, would help modernize the centuries-old royal system. For the first time, people who had never felt represented by the royal family could identify with her and, by association, with the monarchy as a whole. But anyone who has followed the story of the Sussex family knows that, like Princess Diana, Meghan's time in the royal family was no fairy tale.

Being in (and choosing to step out of) the dazzling royal spotlight is no easy task for anyone, and while there are certainly parallels between Meghan and Princess Diana's stories (some of which are featured in this season's "The Crown") ), the two women should not be confused. It is important to recognize the nuances of each situation.

To begin with, when Diana was proposed to by Prince Charles, she was still a teenager. A part-time nursery school teacher with no college education, Diana quickly rose from a life of obscurity to become one of the most famous women in the world, the future Queen of England. By contrast, Princess Meghan had built her own career by the time she met Prince Harry (opens in new tab), had been in relationships, and while she was not necessarily a celebrity, she was used to the public spotlight and had experience dealing with the press. That does not necessarily mean that Princess Meghan was prepared for royal life, but her eyes were open to the world, just as Princess Diana's were not. And Princess Meghan married her brother, not the heir to the throne. It is highly unlikely that she will become queen, and in a family where hierarchy is at its core (opens in new tab), the importance of that birth order is crucial.

Prince Harry was also quick to draw conclusions between how Meghan has been portrayed in the media and what happened to his mother, once writing, "My deepest fear is that history will repeat itself. My deepest fear is that history will repeat itself. I have seen what happens when loved ones are commodified and no longer treated or seen as real people. I lost my mother, and now I see my wife fall victim to the same powerful forces."

Emma Colin, who plays Princess Diana in The Crown, says something similar in her cover story for the November issue of Town & Country (opens in new tab). Said the actress, "You would love to shake up this tabloid and say that history is repeating itself." But that argument would flatten the incredibly complex and somewhat symbiotic relationship between the royal family and the press, and how it has changed over the past few decades.

No one can deny that Princess Diana endured relentless scrutiny from the media and that Meghan continues to deal with it. Diana was one of the first modern celebrities, and the desire for photographs of the Princess was unyielding. The editors just couldn't get enough of her," Ian Down, former photo editor of the Daily Mirror, once told Time magazine (opens in new tab). But the princess's death brought change to Britain, a real shift in the royal family's expectations of privacy and what constitutes harassment from photographers.

As a result, Princess Meghan was not hounded by paparazzi in the streets while working as an active royal. However, she faced racist headlines and vicious abuse, especially online, to the point that the royal family had to rethink its approach to policing comments on social media. This racism is significant and radically different from what Diana experienced. To equate the stories of these two women is to erase that.

But perhaps the greatest divergence in Meghan and Princess Diana's experiences was revealed in the way they left the royal family: in January 2020, Meghan and Harry announced plans to step down from their roles as active royalty, moving around the world before finally settling in Los Angeles. Much like Princess Diana's divorce from Prince Charles, the two left public royal life without the full spotlight. Princess Meghan, however, left with her biggest advocate, Harry, and the two did not end up the same, which makes all the difference.