Princess Diana’s Royal Family ‘Lookalike’ Duchess Sophie Revealed What She Really Thought of Her: ‘I’m Not…’
Duchess Sophie has made her mark in the royal family as one of the most active members and her devotion to charities. However, once upon a time, Prince Edward’s wife was relentlessly compared to another royal: Princess Diana.
The topic was talked about in True Royalty TV’s The Royal Beat—Book Club. British TV personality Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen noted the similarities in their appearances in the 1990s. “There were a lot of very unfair comparisons made between the way that Sophie looked and the way that Diana was and Diana looked,” he said, via Marie Claire.
During the mid-90s, Diana and Sophie were indistinguishable by their blonde bob. “I mean, it didn’t help that the vogue, fashionable hairstyle of the time was identical. They both had it. And the bob or whatever it was called in those days,” Sean Smith, author of Sophie: Saving the Royal Family said. Despite the hairstyle dopplegangers, there was one difference that the public could see. “Diana was about a foot taller than Sophie.”
Their backgrounds could not be more different. Smith recalled that Diana’s upbringing was “very front-rank aristocracy,” but she was “crucially from a very broken home and a very unhappy home,” he said. Sophie, in comparison, “grew up in this very warm, suburban, middle-class, comforting, very supportive environment.”
“Diana grew up within the ranks of the royal family—she was so young—whereas Sophie had, to a certain extent, had a life before she walked down the aisle at St. George’s [Chapel], and boyfriends,” Smith continued.
However, the relationship between the senior working royal and Edward’s girlfriend at the time was pretty shake. Diana reportedly “so intensely” stared at Sophie at a family function that Sophie was left in tears. Royal biographer Judy Wade claimed that Prince Charles’s then-wife “would often mutter, ‘Oh look, here comes my double,’” referring to Sophie.
Sophie also acknowledged the strong resemblance when she told The Daily Mail, “I don’t deny that we do look alike. But I couldn’t ever compete with Diana’s image. I’m not Diana.”
Even behind the scenes, there seemed to be hidden tensions between the women. “Every time an animated Sophie started to say something, Diana would begin speaking, which meant that Sophie had to stop,” Smith wrote. “It is a tradition that if a more senior royal starts talking, the junior royal has to keep quiet.”
“After what seemed like an age of being silenced by Diana, Sophie could stand no more and, having obtained the Queen’s permission to leave, strode back to Edward’s apartment seething with rage,” he continued. “On another occasion, she ran back to the apartment in floods of tears after a dinner at which Diana spent the whole time blatantly and intently staring at her. Sophie would do her utmost to avoid Diana if she possibly could.”
Nearly three decades since their marriage, experts are coining their own new term for Duchess Sophie and Prince Edward as the “royal family’s secret weapon.” According to royal commentator Afua Hagan, Duchess Sophie, 59, has reached this status because of her ability to connect with people during her numerous engagements since King Charles’s cancer diagnosis. She often works behind the scenes, while her husband, Prince Edward, has started stepping into the spotlight in his own way. Hagan told Us Weekly that Prince Edward, now 61, feels “really privileged” to attend public-facing royal events “on behalf” of King Charles III and Prince William.
