Princess Diana would have understood Meghan Markle — but, as a true aristocrat, been horrified by one big thing

Last week marked 28 years since Princess Diana’s tragic death at age 36, and one can’t help but wonder what the People’s Princess would have made of her Dutchess of Netflix daughter-in-law.

While for some, Diana is cast as an eternal angel to Meghan Markle’s devil incarnate, there are some parallels between them.

In contrast to sensible, malleable Princess Kate, both Diana and Meghan were problematic for the royal courtiers — the hidden power behind the institution. 

As a strong-minded US divorcee and former actress, Meghan made them wary, as did Diana when she found her voice and better recognized her value. 

Buoyed by global adoration, the late Princess was, of course, no stranger to shaking things up. She modernized the monarchy and stood up to it. She took her sons to McDonald’s and theme parks — and to visit the homeless, a taste of life’s realities beyond the gilded palace walls. Her glove-free hands shook those of AIDs patients in the 1980s, a move considered to be groundbreaking by standards of royal protocol. 

She likely would have been understanding when it came to Meghan and Harry airing their dirty laundry.

Long before Harry and a verbose ghostwriter penned “Spare” and the Sussexes shared “their truth” with Oprah, Di put it all out there.

She authorized the 1992 bombshell biography, “Diana: Her True Story,” and spilt the tea in her infamous 1995 BBC interview with Martin Bashir, in which she laid the blame for the end of her marriage firmly on Charles and his infidelity with Camilla. 

But Diana would not have embraced every decision made by her baby boy and his domineering wife. Their pious, perma-victim charade in California would have disappointed her — to say nothing of the petty rows and jealousies that sewed a wide riff between Harry and Will.

How sad she would be to see her hot-headed second son holed up in Montecito, consumed by bitter legal battles and flagging Netflix deals, abandoning the life and duties to be a plus-one to Meghan’s ambitions.

Born into British aristocracy, Lady Di would have no doubt shuddered at the low-rent commercial hustle and ever more candid exploits that has defined their post royal life — from hawking $14 jam to the couple’s delivery room twerking video to Meghan’s “ShopMyPage” shenanigans.

Crucially, with Diana, a sense of duty and loyalty ran deep. She had a respect for royal etiquette, hierarchy and the late Queen Elizabeth that contrasts sharply with Meghan’s infamous mock re-enactment of her first curtsy to the queen.

And she was committed to the daily grind. As a working royal, she lit up red carpets, outshining Hollywood stars at their own premieres. She would dazzle just as brightly when visiting a local bowling club or a factory making pottery.  

By contrast, the quieter, less fashionable parts of the job have never appeared to interest Meghan and Harry much. To date, they have visited the county of Sussex that gave them their title just once together.

It seems Meghan thought royal life would be a fast track to the same adored global celebrity, title and reverence as her mother-in-law — but on her terms with even more money and less of the actual day job.

Like Megxit, Diana’s divorce left her in unchartered territory, a quasi-royal position with a new set of rules to negotiate. No longer a fully paid-up member of the firm and stripped of her HRH title, she was however, still a princess to the watching world and had a purpose pursuing meaningful work, like her landmine campaign in Angola.    

Meanwhile, while Meghan initially sold herself as a humanitarian, her lasting legacy might well be runny jam and flower sprinkles. And, for all his work with the Invictus Games Foundation, Harry might best be remembered as a convenient name drop to pep up the just-dropped second season of “With Love, Meghan.”