Both The Crown on Netflix and the real-life Duchess of Sussex have given the British royal family a badly needed PR boost, though in unorthodox ways.

Wpa Pool / Getty Images Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, and Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, at Windsor Castle, Oct. 25.

The Meghan Markle news cycle is ever-spinning, but last month, two clips from an interview with the Duchess of Sussex drew even more attention than usual. In the clips, her doe eyes visibly pained and glazed over with near-tears, Meghan admits to ITV journalist Tom Bradby that she’s been struggling to be a newlywed and new mom while facing a ceaseless torrent of (often racist) scrutiny and intrusion from the media. “It’s not enough to just survive something, right?” Meghan said she tells her husband, Prince Harry, when they’re discussing the tabloids’ negative effects on their day-to-day. “That’s not the point of life. You’ve gotta thrive — you’ve gotta feel happy.” After the clips went viral, the hashtag #WeLoveYouMeghan began trending on Twitter alongside words of support, commiseration, and rescue-mission propositions (writer Samantha Irby tweeted, “so can we just, like, go get meghan or what?”). “It’s a very real thing to be going through behind the scenes,” Meghan admitted. Meanwhile, last weekend, the third season of The Crown — the historical drama that aims to take us behind those very scenes — popped up on Netflix users' screens worldwide. Armed with a new cast to cover the years between 1964 and 1977, the series has had fans devouring each episode, eager to learn more about these global figures we’ve grown up with but know so little about. Despite its archaic nature, the British monarchy has been enjoying — or perhaps for certain members, enduring — a renewed surge of interest over the past few years, largely thanks to both the Sussexes and The Crown. What’s more: The media milestones of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have coincided, almost peculiarly, with every season of The Crown so far. Four days after the first season debuted in November 2016, Buckingham Palace confirmed Prince Harry and Meghan were dating. Just a week and a half after their 2017 engagement announcement, the show premiered its second season. And a few days after teaser clips from the documentary Harry & Meghan: An African Journey were released, The Crown debuted its own trailer, scored by an eerie cover of Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are a-Changin’.” Both The Crown and the Sussexes’ efforts to mitigate the damaging effects of their tabloid coverage have succeeded in boosting the monarchy’s profile and PR, though in an unorthodox way: by actively spotlighting the royals’ humanity — something that, for centuries, the institution has often either failed to accomplish or avoided addressing entirely.

Netflix Olivia Colman as the Queen in The Crown.

The third season of The Crown offers much of what makes its previous seasons so appealing: unabashed opulence, staid pacing, meticulous acting, vintage couture, lavish décor, and corgi cameos. The cinematography is stunningly composed, each frame fit for a painting, and the writing — though sometimes heavy-handed and expositional by necessity — remains elegant and affecting. It’s been rumored the real Prince of Wales is paranoid about this new era of The Crown, which will focus more on him and his love life, thereby resurfacing old scandals as his eventual kingship draws nearer. But upon watching the recent season, it becomes clear the heir apparent can breathe easy; actor Josh O’Connor depicts him as a sensitive, shy, and stifled young man. Even within The Crown universe, Welsh nationalists predisposed to dislike Charles come around after meeting the person behind the “prince” title.

This is how The Crown has always worked: by providing PR facelifts for the Windsors in revealing the people behind the titles, even if the show is ultimately fictional.

This is how The Crown has always worked: by providing PR facelifts for the Windsors in revealing the people behind the titles, even if the show is ultimately fictional. No longer just printed faces on commemorative plates, they become complex, flawed, ultimately likable humans, struggling to reconcile their place in the world and often forfeiting their dreams because of it. Like O’Connor, Tobias Menzies’ note-perfect portrayal of the Duke of Edinburgh provides a master class in image rehab; Prince Philip, known today for his offensive and often racist gaffes, is humanized as we see him endure a moon landing–inspired midlife crisis and reestablish a relationship with his mother. Last season, too, we learned about Philip’s traumatic childhood, which doesn’t clear him of his later insensitivities, but certainly provides perspective. The more intimately we think we know the Windsors’ stories, the more likeable they seem. Even The Crown’s creator, Peter Morgan, who has compared the monarchy to a mutating virus, changed his opinion on the institution after working on the show for two seasons: “I came at it as completely anti-monarchist and I’ve turned around utterly,” he admitted. “I’m a royalist now.”

Des Willie/Netflix

Of all the royals depicted on The Crown, there’s no one more storied and studied than the Queen herself. When Claire Foy plays the young monarch in the first season, we watch her learn how her wants must forever take a backseat to the Crown. Through Olivia Colman, who plays the older, “settled sovereign,” we see she’s become rather accustomed to the dehumanizing dirty work of her duties, appearing much more detached and cold than Foy had been. And while we won’t see The Crown’s senior version of Elizabeth for a while, Morgan’s 2006 film The Queen might give us an idea of what to expect. Graced by an Oscar-winning Helen Mirren, her crimson lips in resting queen face, the film explores how the monarch came under fire upon Diana’s death. Instead of grieving privately as tradition would dictate, the public demanded the Queen mourn more openly. They didn’t want a pillar of strength or stoicism; they wanted to see that she too felt what they were feeling. What was once a necessary condition of the job had suddenly become an occupational hazard. As she is one of the longest-reigning monarchs of all time, it’s worth considering how the Queen’s own reluctance to express her emotions publicly may have encouraged the monarchy’s continued reliance on distance. (It might’ve gone up in flames, but a Princess Margaret monarchy would never have been quite this muted.) To be sure, the Queen has had to fortify a steely exterior in order to navigate a male-dominated world. But considering the immense societal changes she’s lived through — her reign has seen 14 prime ministers so far — perhaps the public’s desired “ideal” from the monarchy has changed too. “I really tried to adopt this British sensibility of a stiff upper lip,” Meghan said in her ITV interview. “I’ve tried; I’ve really tried. But I think that what that does internally is probably really damaging.” The English ideal of keeping a “stiff upper lip” is a recurring theme throughout The Crown. (In an episode on the Aberfan disaster, the impassive Queen is encouraged to turn on the waterworks for once because “this is Wales, not England.”) Especially before Diana’s death — an event that’s said to have ended “Britain’s stiff upper lip brigade” — emotions for the royals were deemed a liability. Detachment, meanwhile, upheld ideas of propriety, elegance, dignity, and discipline. It was seen as a strength. This recent documentary about Harry and Meghan therefore feels like another significant shift in royal PR. It would be naive to assume this wasn’t a tactical move on the Sussexes’ part; the interviews were conducted on the couple’s recent South Africa tour, during which they filed a lawsuit against Associated Newspapers (now called DMG Media), the publisher of the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday. But Meghan’s interviews in particular have offered us a much more raw and revealing look at a member of the Monarchy than has typically been permitted in the past. The last time a royal family member interview this personal and publicized occurred was Princess Diana’s infamous 1995 tell-all with Martin Bashir. In the top-secret interview (Bashir and his camera operator came to Kensington Palace disguised as hi-fi salespeople), the princess spoke about infidelity in her marriage and also revealed her struggles with bulimia, postpartum depression, the palace, and relentless media attention. (A month after the bombshell interview, the Queen wrote to the Prince and Princess of Wales, urging them to divorce.) It’s often said that the paparazzi ended Diana’s life, and it’s her son’s belief as well. (“I will not be bullied into playing a game that killed my mum,” the Duke of Sussex told ITV.) But it’s important to remember that it wasn’t just a car chase and out-of-control paparazzi that wreaked havoc on Diana’s inner world; she also struggled mentally and emotionally with the isolation imposed by the monarchy itself. And at least according to The Crown, we are led to believe this is a symptom that affects most, if not all, of the royals. “You have so much pain inside yourself that you try and hurt yourself on the outside because you want help, but it’s the wrong help you’re asking for,” the princess told Bashir, confirming rumors she had self-harmed. “People see it as crying wolf or attention-seeking, and they think because you’re in the media all the time, you’ve got enough attention. But I was actually crying out because I wanted to get better in order to go forward and continue my duty and my role as wife, mother, Princess of Wales.” “You see yourself as a good product that sits on a shelf and sells well,” Diana added. “And people make a lot of money out of you.”

Steve Wood / Getty Images Prince Charles with Diana, Princess of Wales, and their newborn, Prince Harry, leave St Mary's Hospital in Paddington, London, Sept. 16, 1984.

“I see the harm that is caused when distorted narratives take hold in order to dehumanize another human being. I refuse to be silent.”

And it wasn’t just major public figures chiming in. As #WeLoveYouMeghan circulated, women offered support and their own stories. “I just want to thank Meghan Markle for saying she's not OK instead of some fluffy PR response,” tweeted writer Ashley Simpo. “The idea that women can do it all, mothers are superheroes and parenthood is obvious are hurtful, ignorant and damaging to women.” Stephanie Guerilus tweeted about the racial dynamics at play: “For many of us, including myself, it's about more than tiaras. As a Black woman and journalist, I see the harm that is caused when distorted narratives take hold in order to dehumanize another human being. I refuse to be silent.” When Meghan first joined the royal ranks, it was clear her identity — a biracial American divorcé — made the union unprecedented. The last time a royal wished to marry a divorced American woman, the throne was abdicated and the line of succession altered forever. Moreover, given the British monarchy’s synonymy with white imperialism and (false) notions of bloodline purity, Meghan’s induction into the antiquated institution was seen as a sign of progress — and it was one, though superficially so. Now, however, it appears Meghan is managing to publicly shift from simple figurehead back into a human with visible fragility — a move with the potential to modernize the monarchy even more drastically than her inherent symbolism. This emphasis on voluntary vulnerability isn’t entirely new for the royals: The Cambridges and Prince Harry have been advocates of mental health initiatives, including their own. But Meghan’s interview also provides grounds to reconfigure our ideas of strength, or at least broaden them. There is indeed an admirable mental toughness in “keeping calm and carrying on,” but admitting you’re struggling or hurting shows strength and bravery too. And this deeper understanding on behalf of the royals may breed, for better or worse, more monarchists. In fact, Meghan is much more popular with young people (i.e., the generations who will help dictate the Crown’s future if a referendum were to occur). In a recent poll, 71% of people between the ages of 18 and 24 felt sorry for the Duchess of Sussex versus 26% of 55- to 64-year-olds, and her overall approval ratings showed a similar gap. Racism certainly factors into these numbers to a certain extent, but the results also carry a suggestion: The elderly may prefer the mystique and ceremonial protocol of the monarchy, but when it comes to the royals, younger generations prefer the people to the brand and openness over insincere optics.

Toby Melville / Getty Images The duke and duchess attend the annual WellChild Awards in London, Oct. 15.