George Clooney worries that Meghan Markle is being ‘vilified’ like Princess Diana

George Clooney sees an eerie and dangerous parallel in the way the tabloid media has treated his friend Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, and the way it attacked the late Princess Diana.

The Hollywood star spoke out against what he believes is “irresponsible” treatment of the former Meghan Markle, whose relationship with her estranged father, Thomas Markle, has continued to play out in the press since she married Prince Harry last summer.

“I do want to say, they’re just chasing Meghan Markle everywhere,” he told Australia’s Who Magazine on Tuesday. “She’s been pursued and vilified.”

Clooney and his wife, Amal, attended Meghan’s wedding to Prince Harry in May.

He sees the press treatment of the Duchess, who is pregnant with the couple’s first child, as reminiscent of the relentless coverage that Harry’s mother, Princess Diana, faced before her death at 36 in 1997 in a car crash in Paris.

Diana was in a car that was speeding away from paparazzi at the time of the crash, which French authorities found was caused by the intoxication and reckless driving of driver Henri Paul.

“She’s a woman who is seven months pregnant and she has been pursued and vilified and chased in the same way that Diana was, and it’s history repeating itself,” Clooney said about Meghan. “We’ve seen how that ends.”

Clooney lashed out against the media back in 1997 after Princess Diana’s tragic death.

“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 at the time. “If you weren’t hiding behind the profession of journalism, you would be an accomplice to a crime, and you would go to jail.”

Clooney is the latest to publicly defend Meghan against reports criticizing any little aspect of her public appearances or speculating about tension in the royal family due to her behavior. A group of friends spoke in her defense to People magazine last week, and fellow royal Tessy Antony, Princess of Luxembourg, has tweeted her support of Meghan.

Absolutely! No one deserves that. One should never assume. Either you know or be quite 🦋it’s not nice to talk badly about someone else just because one can, as he or she takes advantage of the anonymity of the web. Stay Kind!!! it’s the new cool! She does not deserve that.

— Tessy Antony, Princess de Luxembourg (@tessy_de) February 10, 2019

Over this past weekend, Meghan’s father revealed a heart-breaking, hand-written letter to Britain’s Mail on Sunday that Meghan allegedly wrote him three months after the wedding. Thomas Markle did not attend the nuptials in the wake of a controversy over staged paparazzi photos, with Prince Charles instead stepping in to walk Meghan down the aisle in her father’s absence.

In the emotional letter, she begs him to “stop lying and creating so much pain” and says his actions have broken her heart into “a million pieces.”

Clooney took issue with the decision to publish the private letter.

“I can’t tell you how frustrating that is, just seeing them broadcast a letter from a daughter to a father,” he said. “She’s getting a raw deal there and I think it’s irresponsible and I’m surprised by that.”