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Meghan and Harry describe Royal Struggles in bombshell interview

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Updated on July 5, 2023

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Meghan Markle revealed on Sunday night’s Oprah with Meghan and Harry: A CBS Primetime Special that when she was pregnant with Prince Harry’s first child, there were conversations and “concerns” in the royal family about the baby’s skin color, even before the couple knew it would be a baby boy, Archie Mountbatten-Windsor.

Meghan confessed to Winfrey that she married into the royal family “naively” since she “grew up not knowing much about the Royal Family.”

While they were critical of their treatment in the press, the most upsetting portions of the interview focused on how members of the royal family treated them. Harry described his relationship with the Queen as “really good relationship” but he claimed he was “disappointed” by his father and that, although he loves his brother William “to bits,” they are on “different paths.”

Meghan also revealed how her life as a working royal had brought her to the verge of committing suicide.

She said, “I just didn’t want to be alive any more.”

“And that was a very clear and real and frightening constant thought. And I remember, I remember how [Harry] just cradled me and I was… I went to the institution, and I said that I needed to go somewhere to get help. I said that I’ve never felt this way before and I need to go somewhere. And I was told that I couldn’t, that it wouldn’t be good for the institution.”

The pair was taken aback when they discovered that their kid would not get a royal title or be given security, which would have been a departure from precedent, according to Markle, who is biracial. “We were very scared having to offer up our baby, knowing they weren’t going to be kept safe,” she said. “In those months when I was pregnant, all around the same time…we have in tandem the conversation of [whether] he won’t be given security, he’s not going to be given a title. And also, concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he’s born.”

Meghan responded to Winfrey’s question about her kid being “too brown” saying, “If that is the assumption you are making, that is a pretty safe one”

Although the pair was respectful to the Queen, with Meghan stating she had “always been wonderful” to her, the interview stunned the Royal Family.

The duo focused extensively on the royal family’s reluctance to provide protection for them, which was a particular source of worry for Harry after his mother’s death. He said that his encounter with Meghan made him realize how difficult it must have been for his mother.

Following Meghan’s accusations of racism, Oprah Winfrey was taken aback and said, “What? Who is having that conversation with you? … With how dark your baby is going to be?” Markle answered: “Potentially. And what that would mean or look like,” before withholding who was having the conversation. “That it would be very damaging to them.” Both Markle and Prince Harry refused to identify the person or people involved in the discussion.

Harry’s relationship with his father had deteriorated due to his feelings of being “let down” by the Prince of Wales, who at one time refused to answer his phone calls.

“But at the same time – I will always love him – but there’s a lot of hurt that’s happened and I will continue to make it one of my priorities to try and heal that relationship.

“But they only know what they know, or what they’re told.”

Meghan said she is “haunted” by a picture of herself taken at a red carpet event at the Royal Albert Hall in January 2019, which the pair attended shortly after she spoke with Harry.

Harry expressed “huge compassion” for their situation. “I think she would feel very angry with how this has panned out, and very sad,” Harry remarked when asked by Winfrey what his mother, Diana, would say if she were alive.

Harry described his relationship with his brother, William, as “space” at the time.

The two-hour Oprah with Meghan and Harry: A CBS Primetime Special, presented by Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Prods., was their first combined appearance since leaving the royal family and relocating to Montecito.

CBS paid Harpo “between $7 million and $9 million” for the rights to broadcast the special, according to a Wall Street Journal story. It’s a huge deal, and it’s only the latest in a long line of exclusive celebrity interviews for Winfrey.

Late last month, Buckingham Palace announced that the couple had completed their split from the royal family and would no longer be working members of the British monarchy.

The Queen issued a statement ten days later praising them for their “dedicated work,” and it was announced that the couple would give up their titles of His Royal Highness and Her Royal Highness, but would retain the titles of Duke and Duchess of Sussex. “I recognize the challenges they have experienced as a result of intense scrutiny over the last two years and support their wish for a more independent life,” the Queen said in a statement, recognizing the period since the couple’s May 2018 wedding and the media’s heavy attention.

Buckingham Palace, where advisers were briefing the Queen today before the interview airs in the UK tonight, had no immediate reaction to the interview.