Selina Scott reveals why she turned down Princess Diana’s request to become her media adviser – and weighs in on what the royal would really think of Harry and William’s feud
Selina Scott has opened up about her ‘kindred relationship’ with the late Princess Diana revealing the reason she turned down a job as her media adviser.
The former TV presenter, who was one of the first women to present ITN’s News at 10 and helped to launched BBC Breakfast Time, met the late Princess of Wales during her journalism career and became fast friends with the royal, who was 10 years her junior.
Now 73 and based in Spain, Yorkshire-born Selina told Hello! magazine she saw Princess Diana like ‘a younger sister’ but was unable to fulfil one particular request that was made on her behalf.
Asked by Michael Shea, Queen Elizabeth II‘s press secretary, if she would provide media advice for the princess, Selina declined.
Selina added that she doesn’t regret turning down the royal press secretary’s request, she appeared conflicted when she reflected on that moment.
‘I have thought about that, a lot, but because of the job I was doing, I don’t think it could have ever worked out,’ Selina said.
Yet the TV star admitted: ‘Perhaps I could have helped her more. I could have helped her in ways I didn’t because I felt it was too intrusive.’
Selina also weighed in on the distance that has opened up between Diana’s children, Prince William, Prince of Wales, 42, and Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, 40.
Selina Scott (pictured in 2015), 73, spoke to Hello! magazine about the ‘kindred relationship’ she shared with Princess Diana
After Harry and wife Meghan Markle left the UK to make a life in California, US, in March 2020, and after Harry’s controversial memoir Spare was published in 2023, the brothers became estranged.
Recognising that William ‘is doing a remarkable job’ and insisting that their mother ‘would have been so proud of them both,’ Selina added that Diana would have equally been ‘devastated that they should be apart like this.’
While Meghan never met Princess Diana, it recently emerged that she was inspired by Harry’s mother’s philanthropic work and hoped to follow in her footsteps.
A former member of staff to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex has claimed that Meghan Markle insisted she would ‘finish what Princess Diana started’ but on a ‘part-time basis’, when she first joined the royal family.
In ‘Yes, Ma’am – The Secret Life of Royal Servant’ by Tom Quinn, a new book due out later this month, an insider provided an insight into Meghan’s initial plans for her life as a working royal.
‘She once said, “What Diana started I want to finish,” and we took that to mean she wanted to become a sort of globetrotting champion of the poor and the marginalised,’ they alleged, in an extract obtained by Femail.
Though they said they didn’t mean it ‘in a critical way’, the insider added that Meghan had wanted to follow in the footsteps of her late mother-in-law, who was known for her extensive humanitarian and charity work.
But the Duchess’ philanthropic ambitions were apparently only a ‘part-time’ commitment, the former staff member told Quinn.
Princess Diana (left) with broadcasters Selina Scott (centre) and Carol Barnes (right) in March 1982
Royal press secretary Michael Shea asked Selina if she would provide media advice to Princess Diana (pictured) – she declined
‘She has managed to do this to some extent, but she really wanted to do it as a princess and with the full backing of the royal family but on a part-time basis,’ they said.
Elsewhere in the book, it is claimed that Meghan was unprepared for royal life in more ways than one and that she resented having to tell staff of her movements.
For instance, a former Kensington Palace staffer said she ‘hated’ staying at Nottingham Cottage, where she and Harry lived between the years of 2017 and 2019, and didn’t like having to inform staff of her whereabouts.
‘She had to agree well in advance what time she might leave for an appointment or an event and she had to make sure she didn’t leave at the same time as, or clash in any way with, a more senior royal leaving the palace,’ they told Quinn.
In the book it is also claimed that Meghan convinced Harry ‘he was being neglected, sidelined, and undervalued’ by the Firm, and felt that their Nottingham Cottage residence was a ‘reflection’ of how the Royal Family was ‘belittling’ him.
Harry had lived in Nottingham Cottage on the grounds of Kensington Palace since 2013 and Meghan joined him there after the couple announced their engagement in 2017.
One of Queen Elizabeth’s former courtiers agreed that Meghan was not prepared to stick to royal strategy.
They told Quinn that the Duchess ‘had plans for her life as a working royal that were not going to be part of a general strategy’.
A former member of staff to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex has claimed Meghan Markle insisted she would ‘finish what Princess Diana started’ but on a ‘part-time basis’, when she first joined the royal family (pictured in 2018)
Princess Diana walked through an active minefield in Angola in 1997 (pictured)
They added that she ‘wanted to do her own thing’ but that it ‘was never going to be acceptable that Meghan should outshine Princess Anne, Prince Charles [as he then was] and Elizabeth the Queen.’
They also said that, before her passing, Queen Elizabeth was naturally the focus of everything the royals did – a fact that they didn’t ‘think Meghan understood‘ since it entailed her having to ‘do things she didn’t want to’.
‘She didn’t understand that when you join the royal family, you don’t do as you please, you do as you’re told. In a sense, you become a servant of the family.’
They explained that when anyone joins the royal family, they are expected to carry out duties as instructed by the courtiers, senior staff and royals.
‘Meghan undoubtedly felt constrained by this and she felt that both she and Harry needed to break out – to still be royals and still be working royals but do their own thing without consulting the big royal machine,’ the former courtier said.
They noted that this ‘was never going to be acceptable’.
However, Harry was so enamoured by the possibility of doing things differently, he staunchly defended Meghan when she butted heads with palace officials.
After their marriage, one of Harry’s now-retired senior aides added, the Duke began to view his ‘core activity’ as ‘being with Meghan’ – rather than attending events like other royal family members – and ‘increasingly adopted her views’.
One former staffer also noted he was ‘far more concerned about social issues and the rights of minorities than he’d ever been before Meghan’s arrival’.
