Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are said to be revisiting their own divorce-related traumas, as a family separation brings back painful memories.
Prince Harry ’s uncle, Charles Spencer has announced that he is getting divorced from his third wife, Karen Gordon, after 13 years of marriage.
Although describing the break up as “immensely sad”, the Earl has also hired Baroness Shackleton of Belgravia, the same lawyer who represented King Charles as he split from the late Princess Diana and stripped the Princess of Wales of her title.
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The announcement is said to be dragging up troubled memories for Meghan and Harry, who both come from broken homes, and vowed not to “repeat the same mistakes” their parents made on their Netflix documentary.
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Meghan’s mum Doria Ragland and her now estranged father Thomas Markle separated in 1987, when she was six, while Harry was just eight-years-old when Prince Charles and Princess Diana battled it out in their high-profile and nasty split in 1996.
“There’s so much I think from anyone’s childhood that you bring with you into the present, especially when you’re the product of divorce,” Meghan told Netflix viewers. Harry added: “I think most kids who are the product of divorced parents have a lot in common, no matter what your background is.”
Meghan has also gone through the divorce process herself. The divorcee-duchess, 42, ended her first marriage marriage to movie producer Trevor Engelson by post in 2013 after three years.
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A source told OK! the news of Spencer’s split has knocked Harry in particular. Not only does it dredge up awful childhood memories, but Harry and the Earl have become even more close after the duke stepped down from royal duties.
They said: “Harry feels like the Spencer family is the only true family he has left in the UK, so he naturally felt shocked and upset when he heard about Charles’ plans to divorce for a third time.
“Whenever divorce is mentioned it always takes Harry back to those awful days when his mum and dad split. It’s something that took him years to get over.”
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“It was heartbreaking for Harry watching his parents start to hate each other and he blames their split for so many of his issues, especially the way his dad handled it and treated his mum.”
The source added that it is hard for Harry to see his uncle engage the same lawyer that his dad used against Diana, and that the Earl could’ve used somebody else out of respect. He also just doesn’t want another divorce in the family, the source claimed.
They said: “Both he and Meghan have been haunted by divorces while growing up and it made them both so determined to have a successful marriage.”
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