Meghan and Harry Oprah interview live: Harry feels 'really let down' by Prince Charles
Highly anticipated prime time two-hour special with Duke and Duchess of Sussex airs as transatlantic public relations war mounts
Meghan and Harry interview: what we learned
- Meghan said that she reached a point where she “just didn’t want to be alive any more. And that was a very real and clear and frightening and constant thought.”
- Meghan said that Harry was asked by family how dark Archie’s skin might be. Oprah asked Meghan why they didn’t want to make Archie a prince. In the months leading up to Archie’s birth, there were not only conversations about how he would not be given a title, and there would not be security, but also about how dark her baby’s skin might be and “what that would mean or look like,” says Meghan. The conversation was had between Harry and a member or members of his family. It was relayed to her by Harry. Neither Meghan nor Harry would say who the conversation was with.
- Harry said Diana would be “angry and sad” at how things worked out. Oprah asked what Harry thought Diana would say about the couple stepping back. “I think she would feel very angry and sad at how this all panned out. But I think all she would ever want would be for us to be happy.”
- Harry has been cut off financially since the first half of 2020. The only money he has, besides extremely lucrative deals with companies including Netflix, is what was left to him by Princess Diana.
- Prince Charles at one point stopped taking Harry’s calls, but the pair are now speaking again. Harry says he still feels “really let down” by Prince Charles.
- It’s a girl. The couple are due to welcome a baby girl to the world some time later in the US summer. This will be their last child, they said.
- Meghan and Harry were married three days before royal wedding. Three days before the royal wedding, Meghan and Harry got married, just them and the priest. “Nobody knows this,” said Meghan.
Meghan and Harry Oprah interview: couple claims concerns were voiced about Archie's skin colour
Extraordinary interview paints picture of ongoing rift with the royal family, with claims the palace failed to protect the Duke and Duchess
Prince Harry and Meghan have described in explosive terms their relationship with the royal household in an interview with Oprah Winfrey.
Helen Sullivan
@helenrsullivan
Mon 8 Mar 2021 03.55 GMT
Prince Harry and Meghan have told Oprah Winfrey there were conversations in the royal family about the skin colour of their son Archie before his birth, a damning allegation that will send shockwaves through the institution and send relations with the palace to a new low.
In the extraordinary interview, the Duchess of Sussex said her time after becoming a royal was “almost unsurvivable” and she had suicidal thoughts. She claimed that the royal household did not allow her to seek help for her mental health. “I just didn’t want to be alive any more. And that was a very real and clear and frightening and constant thought.”
She agreed with Oprah that she had been “silenced” from the moment she started dating Prince Harry, that her staff were told to respond to all questions with “no comment” despite the early intense media pressure. She said they were not allowed to defend her.
Meghan said she was not told why Archie wouldn’t be offered security protection. She also said that Harry told her there had been conversations about how dark her baby’s skin might be and “what that would mean or look like”.
“In those months when I was pregnant, all around this same time, so we have in tandem the conversation of, ‘you won’t be given security, not gonna be given a title’ and also concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he’s born,” she said. Harry said he had been “shocked” by conversation but refused to reveal more details.
Harry – who also revealed they are due to have a girl in the summer – said his family had never taken the opportunity, as MPs had done, to criticise the press for the “colonial undertones” of the early coverage of his relationship with Meghan.
The prince ascribed this to the palace’s fear of the tabloid press, which led to him feeling “trapped within the system”. He said he had “compassion” for Prince Charles and Prince William, who were in the same situation, constrained by the “invisible contract” in which journalists are courted in return for favourable coverage.
Both Meghan and Harry spoke in glowing terms of the Queen. Meghan described her personal warmth – offering to share blanket to keep her legs warm – and Harry joked that he had spoken to his “commander in chief” more in the past year than for many years.
But Harry spoke of a breakdown in his relationship with his father, saying at one point Charles stopped taking his calls to discuss their separation from the royal family. Harry made clear they are now speaking again. “There’s a lot to work through,” Harry said. “I feel really let down because he’s been through something similar. He knows what pain feels like.”
Meghan also rejected tabloid press reports that claims she had made Kate cry in a much-publicised row over bridesmaids’ dressed before their 2018 wedding. She confirmed a dispute took place, but said Kate had made her cry, and had subsequently apologised and sent her flowers. She refused to reveal more details. But, she said: “The narrative of making Kate cry was the beginning of character assassination.”
The couple’s comments come at the end of an acrimonious week between them and Buckingham Palace. On Wednesday, allegations were made that Meghan had bullied two personal assistants out of Sussexes’ household and undermined the confidence of a third staff member.
A spokesperson for the couple dismissed the claims as a “calculated smear campaign based on misleading and harmful misinformation” but the palace said it would investigate the allegations.
CBS has released a trickle of brief clips from the Winfrey interview, notably Harry’s fear of Diana’s “history repeating itself” and Meghan suggesting the palace was playing an “active role” in “perpetuating falsehoods about us”.
Shortly before the screening of Sunday’s interview, the Queen spoke of the importance of “dedication to duty” in a television address.
In the pre-recorded message at a Commonwealth day service in Westminster Abbey – the event where last year Meghan and Harry made their last appearance before giving up royal duties – the Queen praised those across the Commonwealth who had put others first during the pandemic.
“Whilst experiences of the last year have been different across the Commonwealth, stirring examples of courage, commitment and selfless dedication to duty have been demonstrated in every Commonwealth nation and territory,” she said.
“The testing times experienced by so many have led to a deeper appreciation of mutual support and spiritual sustenance we enjoy by being connected to others,” she added.
The issue of service and duty became a point of contention after Meghan and Harry severed ties and gave up their roles as senior royals. They said in a statement last month: “We can all live a life of service. Service is universal.”
Last month, Buckingham Palace said the couple had confirmed they would not “continue with the responsibilities and duties that come with a life of public service”.
The Sunday Times said the Queen would not watch the interview and reported the palace would respond only if individual members were attacked in the interview.
Ahead of the Queen’s address, other senior royals – Prince Charles, Camilla, Prince William and and Kate – paid tribute to the world’s frontline workers during the Covid outbreak in a series of special video clips.
A Raw Look Behind Palace Doors as Meghan and Harry Meet With Oprah: Live Updates
In a two-hour interview with Oprah Winfrey, Meghan Markle made dramatic disclosures, including that there were “concerns and conversations about how dark” her son’s skin might be.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/03/07/world/meghan-harry-oprah-interview
Here is tomorrow’s Daily Mail front page, giving a sense of how this will play out in the British press:
And ... The DAILY EXPRESS ...
