Amanda Platell Uses Harry’s Childhood Pain to Attack Meghan — and It’s as Ugly as It Sounds

Amanda Platell has spent years using Meghan Sussex, Prince Harry and their children as raw material for increasingly hostile royal commentary. Platell’s latest column goes one step further, suggesting, with all the delicacy of a sledgehammer, that Harry’s inability to heal from childhood trauma might be “rooted in his marriage to Meghan.“

This is not a new pattern. Last month, Platell described the possibility of Meghan, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet visiting Britain as a “Sussex invasion” and urged Kate Middleton to “protect her family” from them. The visit had not even been confirmed, yet Platell framed a mother and two children as a threat to the Wales household.

So here again, Amanda casts Meghan as manipulative, narcissistic and responsible for Harry’s pain. Platell somehow finds a way to weaponise Harry’s childhood trauma over Diana’s death against the woman he met decades later.

Which, sad as I feel for Harry, made me think: why hasn’t William suffered in the same way with unresolved grief? Why isn’t he a bitter and angry man raging like a child against the injustice of the world?

And clear as a bell, a simple answer came to me: Because he has Kate.

William fell in love with and married a young woman from a happy Home Counties family reared on wholesome home-cooked Sunday roasts and bursting with love. A family, dare I say it, full of healing.

Harry on the other hand does not have the support of an extended family. He married a TV actress who refuses to speak to her siblings or her father – a man Harry and their children Archie and Lilibet have never even met despite Thomas Markle’s repeated entreaties for them to do so.

In short, William didn’t marry a narcissistic woman from a broken home whose version of extended family support seems to consist of hosting casual friend on her With Love, Meghan runny-jam and flower-petal Netflix series.

Amanda Platell’s Daily Mail Column

Turning Harry’s Childhood Trauma Into Another Attack on Meghan

What stands out is how far parts of the British press are willing to go to make Meghan responsible for every difficulty in Harry’s life, including trauma that began when he was a 12-year-old boy grieving his mother. That is narrative laundering.

Amanda Platell appears to argue that Harry’s decision to examine his childhood pain proves Meghan has deepened it. She is not alone. Lady Colin Campbell advanced a similar narrative on Camilla Tominey’s Daily T podcast, describing the couple’s relationship as a “folie à deux” and suggesting that Harry feels drawn to rescuing Meghan from her supposed victimhood. It is the same trick: take pain that existed long before Meghan and recast her as its cause.

Meanwhile, Prince William is presented as healthier because he married into the Middleton family. That framing is convenient, but absurd. Harry has spoken openly about years of grief, anger and avoidance before Meghan entered his life. A partner encouraging someone to seek help is not manipulation. In most circumstances, it would be called support.

The Media’s Misogynoir Against Doria Ragland

The treatment of Doria Ragland is equally revealing. The British press has recycled the claim that Doria Ragland “abandoned” Meghan while Thomas Markle raised her alone so often that it now treats the accusation as fact. It is not. Carole Malone pushed an even more damaging version of the same narrative on GB News, falsely claiming that Doria had been in prison during Meghan’s childhood while Thomas cared for her. GB News later issued an apology and correction over the false allegation.

This is textbook misogynoir. The British press casts suspicion on Meghan’s Black mother while lavishing extraordinary indulgence on Thomas Markle, whose years of interviews, staged photographs and public attacks go largely unremarked. Doria, by contrast, is successful, private and dignified. She rarely speaks to the press, refuses to turn her daughter into a media commodity and does not perform the stereotypes that outlets such as the Daily Mail have long imposed on Black women.

That may be precisely why she unsettles them. Doria offers no scandal, no public breakdown and no access. She cannot be easily reduced to the caricature they want, so they invent one. The attacks on her also expose a deeper reason for the hostility toward Meghan: she is a biracial woman whose Black mother remains a visible, respected and quietly influential part of her life.

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The Press Demands Access While Mocking the Sussexes’ Safety Concerns

Then there is the attempt to contrast Archie and Lilibet with George and Charlotte. The very same press that criticises Harry and Meghan for protecting their children’s privacy also complains that it has too little access to them. That is not a concern for the children. It is frustration that the Sussexes have denied the media an endless supply of photographs, comparisons and headlines.

The language has also become increasingly reckless. Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson wrote that it would take a “brave group” to abduct Meghan and joked that no one might be willing to pay the ransom. Tom Bower has said the monarchy’s future depends on “obliterating the Sussexes,” while commentators such as Piers Morgan have joked about “dismembering” Harry.

The press may package these remarks as satire, but they still normalise violent imagery around a family whose security concerns they repeatedly dismiss as exaggerated. The press cannot circulate fantasies of abduction, destruction and bodily harm, then pretend not to understand why Harry takes the threat environment seriously.

Final Thoughts

What we are seeing is not an honest examination of trauma. It is an effort to turn Meghan into the cause of pain that predates her, while presenting William’s silence and hostility as proof of emotional stability.

Harry sought help, built a life away from the institution and protects his children from the machinery that consumed his mother. The press can dislike those choices. What it cannot credibly do is rewrite his childhood so Meghan becomes responsible for wounds inflicted years before they met.