Jeremy Paxman discusses royals’ lack of privacy in 2007

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The veteran broadcaster had just released his book ‘On Royalty’ and was discussing how difficult it is to be a royal. One of the most challenging elements is the lack of privacy, and to highlight this he quoted the Queen’s first nanny, Marion Crawford. Ms Crawford reportedly said: “The only truly private period in the life of a royal person is in the womb.”

It is this lack of privacy that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex struggled with so much during their time as working members of the Royal Family.

In an unaired clip from the couple’s interview with Oprah Winfrey, Meghan opened up about the invasions of privacy she experienced while dating and married to Prince Harry.

Oprah asked whether there should have been an expectation that she would lose some privacy when being in a relationship with a royal.

Meghan replied: “I think everyone has a basic right to privacy. Basic.

“We’re not talking about anything that anybody else wouldn’t expect.”

She went on to give an analogy to ordinary life to explain what she meant by this.

Meghan said: “If you’re at work and you have a photograph of your child on your desk and your coworker says, ‘Oh my gosh, your kid’s so cute. That’s fantastic. Can I see your phone so I can see all the pictures of your child?’

“You go, ‘No. This is the picture I’m comfortable sharing with you.’

“And then if they double down and say, ‘No, but you already showed me one. So you have to show me everything. You know what, I’m just gonna hire someone to sit in front of your house, or hide in the bushes and take pictures into your backyard, because you’ve lost your right to privacy… because you shared one image with me.’”

Meghan added: “I think life is about being able to share our stories and share parts of our lives that you’re comfortable with.

“There’s no one who’s on Instagram or social media that would say, ‘Because I shared this one picture, that entitles you to have my entire camera roll. Go ahead and look through it.’

“No one would want that. So it’s about boundaries. And it’s about respect.”

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Meghan won a privacy case earlier this year, after she sued Associated Newspapers for publishing excerpts from a letter she wrote to her father, Thomas Markle, in the Mail on Sunday and Mail Online.

All royals have struggled with their lack of privacy at some point in their lives.

However, Mr Paxman posited that it is the very lack of privacy that makes the royals so popular and why the monarchy has such longevity.

He explained in his 2007 comments that ordinary people feel like they have a personal connection to members of the Royal Family because they know them their whole lives, from when they are born ‒ or marry into the family ‒ to when they die.

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When asked what makes people feel such strong emotions about the Royal Family, Mr Paxman said: “It’s partly that there’s only one of them, there’s only one Queen.

“And none of us can ever become a royal ourselves, unless we choose to marry into that family, which is unlikely in most of our cases.

“So I think there’s that, I think the fact there’s only one of her, that she is in a strict sense she’s unique, and it’s also true of Queen Margrethe in Denmark or Beatrix in Holland or Juan Carlos in Spain, there’s only one of them.

“I think also that we know them all their lives really.

“The Queen’s first nanny Marion Crawford once said: ‘The only truly private period in the life of a royal person is in the womb.’

“And after that, of course, we know everything about them.”

Indeed, the royals may resent perceived intrusions of privacy, yet the institution would arguably not survive without it.

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