Joyce Fegan: From paparazzi to podcasts — princesses 20 years apart

"While we busy ourselves in the comparison of two princesses and the dissection of Meghan, in 2022, isn't it time we took a look at ourselves, and the systems and platforms we use, populate and participate in?"

While images and videos of Meghan Markle are not being traded in the same way as Diana’s were 25 years ago, instead things like private letters she wrote to her father are. Picture: Ben Birchall - WPA Pool / Getty Images

PRINCESS Diana would have just been 61 were she still alive. Instead, this week marked the 25th anniversary of her death after a traffic collision in a Parisian tunnel. While the cultural narrative is that paparazzi pursued her to death, a 2008 inquest into her death found she was “unlawfully killed” due to two factors. There was the “gross negligence” of her driver, who was three times over the drink-drive limit, and the “grossly negligent driving of the vehicles which followed the Princess” — the paparazzi.

Twenty five years on, and in the same week, her daughter-in-law Meghan Markle, married to her youngest son Harry, gave a 6,500-word interview to American publication The Cut. She has just launched a podcast, Archetypes. Last week she spoke to tennis superstar Serena Williams about “ambition” for her show’s debut, and this week she spoke to singer Mariah Carey where the pair interrogated the term “diva”.