Why Harry ‘wouldn’t have married Meghan if Diana had lived’
Prince Harry would never have married Meghan Markle if his mother, Princess Diana, were alive, according to her former butler and confidante Paul Burrell.
The 67-year-old former royal aide worked for Diana for more than a decade and became one of her most trusted friends. RadarOnline.com can reveal that he believes the late princess’ presence would have completely changed the course of her youngest son’s life.
Burrell made this claim about Markle while reflecting on how Diana’s death in 1997 left Harry emotionally adrift and searching for the kind of love and security he had lost.
He said: “If Diana had been alive, I doubt Harry would have married Meghan. Over the next few years, as he went through his life, he was lost, he didn’t know where love was.
“When he heard a 36-year-old adult American woman whisper in his ear something like, ‘You and I could make a great team,’ or, ‘We could change the world,’ he didn’t hear Meghan’s voice, he heard his mother’s voice. “Because Harry was always looking for love and found it with Meghan.”
Burrell, who served both Queen Elizabeth II and Diana before leaving royal service in the late 1990s, said he believed the princess would have guided her son through relationships with a “steady hand” and that her wisdom could have changed the choices he made later in life.
“Diana would have given him the kind of foundation only a mother can have,” a royal insider told us.
“She adored both her boys, but she also had a sense of perspective. She would have seen the red flags early on – not necessarily with Meghan herself, but with the media storm and isolation that came with her.”
Harry, 41, met actress Markle, then 36, on a blind date in London in 2016.
Their relationship quickly turned serious, with Meghan leaving her role on the hit TV drama To take and move to Great Britain.
Their engagement was announced in November 2017 and the couple married the following May at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle.
The royal wedding – watched by almost two billion people worldwide – was heralded as a symbol of a modern monarchy.
But tensions soon followed, with reports of disagreements between Harry and his brother, Prince William, and between Markle and members of the royal household.
In 2020, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex stepped down as working royals and moved to California, a move that sent shockwaves through the royal establishment.
In his 2022 Netflix docuseries Harry & Meghanthe prince openly compared his wife to his deceased mother.
“So much of what Meghan is and what she is like is so similar to my mother,” he said. “She has the same compassion, she has the same empathy, she has the same trust. She has this warmth about her.”
But Burrell suggested that these similarities may have been exactly what drew Harry to Markle in the first place — and what blinded him to the potential pitfalls of their relationship.
“He has spent his entire adult life trying to fill the void left by Diana,” another Palace insider claimed. “In Meghan, he saw someone who echoed the spirit of his mother, but also someone who fiercely defended him as Diana always did.”
Burrell, who once described Diana as “the only person who ever really understood me,” has told friends she would have wanted her son to be happy – but also protected.
A source claimed: “Diana would have been the bridge between Harry and the rest of the family. She would never have let this rift get to the point it is today.”
