Prince Harry says Queen Elizabeth, Prince Philip were not involved in discussion about Archie's skin tone
All anyone is talking about today is Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's jaw-dropping interview — and Oprah Winfrey was on CBS This Morning on Monday to share additional clips and provide insight.
One of the most shocking reveals from Sunday's Oprah with Meghan and Harry was the couple's claim that when Meghan was pregnant with Archie, a senior member of the family expressed concern to Harry about how dark the child's skin may be due to Meghan being of mixed race. There has been non-stop speculation about who said it, and while Winfrey never got an answer, she ruled out two people.
"He did not share the identity with me, but he wanted to make sure I knew — and if I had an opportunity to share it — that it was not his grandmother nor grandfather," Queen Elizabeth or Prince Philip, "that were part of those conversations," Winfrey said, adding that she tried to get the answer on-camera and off.
In an unaired clip from the interview, Harry talked about how — after he and Meghan released their announcement they would be stepping back from their formal duties in January 2020 — he was to visit his grandmother, but the meeting was abruptly canceled.
"That announcement that we put out on the 8th of January in 2020, that was — the content of that was put in a letter to the institution, to my father, which was then shared at the end of December while we were in Canada," Harry said. "And to then get back on the 6th after my grandmother had said 'The moment you land, come up to [Sandringham]. Love to have a chat. Come for tea. Why don't you stay for dinner? It's going to be a long drive and you're going to be exhausted."
Meghan added, "She wanted us to stay the night."
However, when their plane landed, Harry got a message from his private secretary with a message from the Queen's private secretary saying they could no longer come.
"'The queen is busy. She's busy all week,'" he said the message said. "Do not come up here."
He called his grandmother directly that night and said he was considering coming anyway. However, "She said, 'I have something in my diary that I didn't know that I had.' I said, 'Well, what about the rest of the week?' She goes, 'Well that's busy now as well."
He said he didn't push further, "because I kind of knew what was going on," in that he was being kept away.
When Winfrey asked whether the queen gets to do what the queen wants to do, Harry said no, explaining, "When you're head of the firm, there is people around you that give you advice. And what has also made me really sad is some of that advice has been really bad."
Another previously unaired clip saw Harry saying racism "was a large part" of the reason they left the UK, now residing in Montecito, Calif. He recalled a conversation at a charity dinner for Sentebale when someone told him not to take on the media because "'they will destroy your life.'"
Harry recalled saying, "'Sorry, elaborate, what do you mean by that?' I knew. He said, 'Please understand the U.K. is very bigoted.' And I stopped and said, 'The U.K. is not bigoted. The U.K. press is bigoted, specifically the tabloids. Is that what you mean?'
"He goes, 'No, the U.K. is bigoted.' And I said, 'I completely disagree.' But unfortunately, if the source of information is inherently corrupt or racist or biased, then that filters out to the rest of society."
Another unaired clip had Winfrey asking Harry if his family members reached out to him apologizing over how he and Meghan felt the need to leave the U.K.
“No, sadly not," he replied, "The feeling is that this was our decision, therefore the consequences are on us. And despite three years of asking for help and seeing, or visualizing how this might end — it was, I don't know, just — look, it's been really hard. Because I'm trying. I'm part of the system with them. I always have been."
When Harry talked about being in a toxic environment in the U.K., Winfrey asked whether his father, Prince Charles, would agree. Harry said, "No, I think he's had to make peace with it."
Asked if his brother, Prince William, wanted to leave the system, Harry said, "I can't speak for him," noting in the original interview that they have a wedge between them amidst all this.
Meghan — who spoke in Sunday's interview about having suicidal thoughts at the height of their troubles before leaving the U.K. — said she couldn't make peace with it herself and felt her situation was made worse by racism and endless scrutiny on social media.
"It was like the wild, wild west," Meghan said. "It was spread like wildfire. Plus my being American, it translated in a different way across the pond. So you had a noise level that was very different. But they can't see that it's different."
Meghan said, "I think the volume of what was coming in and the interest was greater because of social media, because of the fact that I was not just British, and that unfortunately, if members of his family say, 'Well, this is what's happened to all of us,' or if his — if they can compare what the experience that I went through was similar to what has been shared with us."
She added, "And if a member of his family will comfortably say we've all had to deal with things that are rude, rude and racist are not the same."
When Winfrey asked Prince Harry if he hoped his family would acknowledge that their treatment was different due to race, he replied, "It would make a huge difference. Like I said, there's a lot of people that have seen it for what it was… like it's talked about across the world. Yet the very people who don't want to see it or can't see it choose not to see it."
And yet another unaired clip had Meghan speaking about how she found out her father, Thomas Markle, was working with the tabloids. She detailed how he lied to her when she asked if had sold his story. She also spoke about half-sister Samantha Markle's upcoming tell-all book.
"I think it would be very hard to tell all when you don't know me," Meghan said. "This is a very different situation than my dad. Betrayal comes from someone that you have a relationship with."
She said she "grew up as an only child," from Thomas's marriage to her mom, Doria Ragland. She said she hasn't seen Thomas's daughter Samantha in 18 or 19 years and then 10 more years before that.
Meghan said Samantha "changed her last name back to Markle" when Meghan and Harry started dating. "I think that says a lot," Meghan said.
Winfrey — who has been getting kudos for the interview — said it was hard to trim down their three hour and 20 minute discussion to the one hour and 25 minutes that aired. She said she tried to focus on what she felt people wanted to know about most, which is why the couple left the U.K. in the first place. Meghan and Harry made many other jaw-dropping revelations, including the one about the senior family member discussing the skin tone of their then-unborn child.
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