LOS ANGELES (AP) – The time has finally come for the audience to hear Meghan and Harry describe the background story and the effects of their tumultuous separation from real life.
Sunday night’s screening of a two-hour special presented by Oprah Winfrey will provide the first and unprecedented look at the couple’s departure from royal duties and the tensions this has caused them.
The way it is received probably depends on which side of the Atlantic Ocean the viewers are on.
The program, which includes Winfrey’s interviews with Meghan and Harry, will air for the first time in the United States – Meghan’s home country – at 8 pm. Hours earlier, Harry’s grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, will deliver a royal speech before Community Day.
The British public will wake up on Monday with headlines and social media posts about the Winfrey special, but will not be able to see the full interview until Monday night, when it airs on ITV.
Actual interviews that are not linked to a specific topic are rare, and previous television sessions have often proved problematic. Prince Andrew’s 2019 BBC interview about his connections with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein led to his own departure from royal duties after he failed to show empathy for Epstein’s victims.
Harry and Meghan’s departure from royal duties began in March 2020 on what they described as British media intrusions and racist attitudes towards the Duchess, who is biracial.
Clips released before the screenings suggest that at least Meghan will have some incisive criticisms of real life. In one, she describes the royal family as “the company”, a nickname that is sometimes used with affection and sometimes with criticism.
At one point, Winfrey asked Meghan how she felt about Buckingham Palace “to hear you speak your truth today?”
“I don’t know how they could expect that, after all this time, we would still be silent if there was an active role that the company is playing in perpetuating falsehoods about us,” she said. “And if it comes with the risk of losing things, I mean, a lot of things have already been lost.”
In another clip, Harry invoked the memory of his late mother, Princess Diana, who had to find her way alone after the divorce from Prince Charles.
“I’m very relieved and happy to be sitting here talking to you with my wife by my side, because I can’t even imagine what it must have been like for her to go through this process alone so many years ago,” Harry said, adding, “because it’s been incredibly difficult for both of us ”.
In Britain, the interview is seen as poorly timed. The film will air while Harry’s grandfather, Prince Philip, remains hospitalized after undergoing a cardiac procedure.
Meghan is shown in a clip released Friday contrasting the conversation that the two women were able to have now with that of 2018 before their wedding. Meghan described not being able to speak to Winfrey, who was looking for an interview, without the presence of real escorts.
“As an adult who lived a really independent life to then enter this construction that is … different from what I think people imagine it to be, it is really liberating to be able to have the right and the privilege to be able to say yes”, Meghan said to Winfrey.
It is unclear what public reaction, if any, the queen and other members of the royal family will have to Sunday’s interview.
On Wednesday, the palace said it was starting an investigation of human resources after a London newspaper reported that a former aide accused Meghan of intimidating employees in 2018.
A spokeswoman for the duchess said she was “saddened by the latest attack on her character, especially as someone who has been bullied.”
The excerpts already released provide some details about the interview, which includes Winfrey talking face to face with Meghan and a joint session with the couple.
Hand in hand, Harry and Meghan sat across from Winfrey while she questioned them in a lush garden. The couple lives in Montecito, California, where they are Winfrey’s neighbors.
Meghan, who recently announced that she is pregnant with the couple’s second child, wore a black empire style dress with embroidery. Harry wore a light gray suit and white dress shirt, without a tie.
Like Meghan Markle, the actor starred in the TV legal drama “Suits”. She married Harry at Windsor Castle in May 2018, and her son, Archie, was born a year later.
Harry and Meghan’s departure from real life should be reviewed after a year. On February 19, Buckingham Palace confirmed that the couple would not return to royal duties and that Harry would give up his honorary military titles – a decision that made the couple’s separation from the royal family formal and final.