Candace Owens' Wild Meghan Markle Theory Goes Viral

Candace Owens' theory that Prince Harry "actually believes that Meghan Markle is Princess Diana" has gone viral on TikTok.

In a controversial monologue, the conservative commentator said she believes Meghan is "using a real childhood trauma that Prince Harry suffered from losing his mother."

Harry has said many times that he believes history is repeating itself, comparing Meghan's experiences with the royal family and the media to Diana's.

Many commentators have also observed that Harry may want to save Meghan to heal the childhood wound he suffered from losing his mother.

However, Owens appeared to go a step further by suggesting Meghan had "used" the trauma of Diana's death in a 1997 Paris car crash "to further harness him to her and their relationship."

"I knew throughout their entire relationship—because I do believe that she is an emotionally abusive person—that she is embarking on Freudian transfer," Owens said. "She is using a real childhood trauma that Prince Harry suffered from—losing his mother."

Owens' monologue was originally broadcast on her Daily Wire show in December 2022 after the release of the couple's Netflix docuseries, Harry & Meghan. Now, it has resurfaced on TikTok, where it has been liked almost 13,000 times and viewed more than 200,000 times.

"She has convinced him," Owens said. "He actually believes that Meghan Markle is Princess Diana. So in case you missed it, the documentary, it turns out Meghan Markle is Princess Diana. That's what she wants you guys to know.

"She is Princess Diana, and fortunately for Prince Harry, this time he got to save his mom. I mean, how sick is that, me even saying that? It sounds so sick, but this is actually what is taking place," she said.

Owens cited a scene in the docuseries in which Harry said: "So much of what Meghan is, and how she is, is so similar to my mom. She has the same compassion, she has the same empathy, she has the same confidence. She has this warmth about her."

Owens said, "That is disturbing on so many levels. It's disturbing because this is something that I didn't want to be right about, but it was so obvious."

Owens then delved into Meghan's experiences of suicidal thoughts, which the duchess described to Oprah Winfrey in her March 2021 tell-all interview.

Meghan said: "I was really ashamed to say it at the time and ashamed to have to admit it to Harry, especially, because I know how much loss he's suffered. But I knew that if I didn't say it that I would do it. And I just didn't want to be alive anymore. And that was a very clear and real and frightening constant thought."

Owens said: "It's so emotionally abusive. It triggered Prince Harry, and that became the reason they left the royal family."

Her characterization of Meghan could prove inflammatory on multiple counts, covering sensitive subjects ranging from Diana's death to Meghan's suicidal feelings. Meghan and Harry have been repeatedly and often vehemently criticized in the media in Britain and, increasingly in 2023, in America too.

Much of the hostility has taken the form of straightforward attacks on their alleged hypocrisy. For example, flying by private jet while preaching about the environment or pleading for privacy while airing the royal family's dirty laundry.

However, there is a more complex element that occasionally surfaces in psychological takes on Meghan.

Even in the earliest days of their royal exit, celebrity psychologist Jo Hemmings wrote in the Daily Mail, "we [knew] that Harry still feels the impact of his mother's untimely death very keenly and that made him vulnerable to a strong, even dominant woman who could fulfill part of that loss in his life."

She went on: "But with a strong and ambitious woman, especially one who has already carved out a successful career of her own, her influence over Harry would have been greater than we might have otherwise expected.

"It seems that when Meghan found that she didn't seem to fit in with the Royal Family in the way that she had hoped, she exerted an even greater influence over Harry so that she could gradually draw him away from friends and family in order for them to build a new family of their own," Hemmings said.

Valentine Low's 2023 book, Courtiers: Intrigue, Ambition, and the Power Players Behind the House of Windsor, described how the palace staff viewed Meghan: "Sources say the team came up with a damning epithet for Meghan: a 'narcissistic sociopath.'"

Carole Lieberman, a psychiatrist and TV commentator, told GB News: "She is a...malignant narcissist, malicious too. She's also a sociopath, and this new Netflix documentary which I suffered through for three-plus hours, getting more nauseous and more drowsy as it went on...she is very dangerous.

"She's already proven that she's very dangerous. What her one goal in life is: to get as much attention as she can, and she doesn't care who she destroys in the process," Lieberman said.

This narrative is particularly awkward for Meghan and Harry to counter, as the characterizations go beyond factual events to her thinking, which she cannot share or prove.

The allegation still appears to garner a significant social media audience more than a year later—and after a 12-month period in which Meghan has maintained a relatively low profile. All of which is challenging for the duchess.

Jack Royston is Newsweek's chief royal correspondent, based in London. You can find him on X (formerly Twitter) at @jack_royston and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.

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