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George Clooney is speaking out about the negative press surrounding Meghan Markle.
According to CNN, which cites the U.K.’s Press Association, Clooney said Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, is being “vilified.”
“They’re just chasing Meghan Markle everywhere, she’s been pursued and vilified,” Clooney said at a press event for his new series. “I can’t tell you how frustrating it is to see that.”
“She’s a woman who is seven months pregnant, and she is being pursued and vilified and chased in the same way that Diana was, and it’s history repeating itself, and we’ve seen how that ends,” he added.
He also, according to the Press Association, referenced a recent story published in The Mail on Sunday, which published an alleged letter from the duchess to her father, Thomas Markle.
“You’re taking a letter from a daughter to a father and broadcasting it everywhere,” Clooney said.
The strong statements aren’t so surprising, given the actor and his wife Amal are friends of the duke and duchess. (They attended the royal wedding in May, and Prince Harry and Meghan reportedly visited their Lake Como villa this summer.) It’s also not the first time Clooney has defended a royal against the press.
Clooney mentioned Princess Diana in his recent comments, which is significant because about 20 years ago, after her death, a young Clooney made a fiery speech at the Screen Actors Guild office in Los Angeles. It lambasted the press. “Princess Di is dead, and who should we see about that? The driver of the car? The paparazzi? Or the magazines and papers who purchased these pictures and make bounty hunters out of photographers?” he said to a group of reporters.
There are differences, of course, between what is happening with Meghan and what happened with Diana. Meghan, for one, is facing a 24/7 news cycle and social media, a platform turned so toxic it’s reported that Kensington Palace is forced to monitor comments. (It also inspired Hello!, a British outlet, to launch a kindness campaign.) The duchess also has family members who are willing to talk to the press. And the tragedy of Diana’s death involved, yes, an overaggressive press, but also high speeds and an intoxicated driver.
The common denominator? An insatiable appetite for the royal family and especially their lives behind closed doors—which undoubtedly takes a toll on the subjects themselves. Last week, People published a cover story which anonymously quoted five of the duchess’s alleged friends. “We worry about what this is doing to her and the baby,” said one. “It’s wrong to put anyone under this level of emotional trauma, let alone when they’re pregnant.”
Hopefully for Meghan, this too shall pass. But until then, she has an ally in George Clooney.
https://www.vogue.com/article/george-clooney-defends-meghan-markle
