Must-see TV, meet royalty. This Sunday, all eyes will be glued at two o’clock Oprah with Meghan and Harry: a CBS primetime special, which marks the first major joint interview of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry since they left the post of older members of the royal family last year and moved to California with their son Archie.
Winfrey will have a lot to talk to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex – who happen to be her new neighbors – from her family life in California and who just announced to royalty that they are going to have another child after a miscarriage last year. drama that surrounded his departure in 2020. The interview comes on the heels of Meghan’s legal victory in her privacy lawsuit against the British newspaper Mail on Sunday after the publication of a private letter, she sent her distant father, Thomas Markle.
It turns out that this victory was crucial for Winfrey’s interview – which has been going on for a long time – to get the green light to move on, real correspondent Omid Scobie tells Yahoo Life.
“This Oprah interview would not have taken place if the outcome of the summary judgment on the Correspondence case went in a different direction, “Scobie, co-author of the Harry and Meghan biography Finding Freedom, it says. “It was literally the day after the victory that they returned to Oprah and confirmed that everything could go on.
“I think that many times people question the moment of this interview and I think that there was this case with the Correspondence not having lasted that long, we would have seen them talking about their last years long before, “he adds.” I think that everything for Harry and Meghan last year didn’t happen at the original time that they would have originally liked. Of course, we are in the middle of a pandemic; they spent much of last year at home. So what we’re really looking at now is a couple who are finally entering their new chapter. “
But this new chapter does not come with serious baggage – and a barrage of preventive criticism from the British press against which the couple rebelled. As expectations for real revelations rise, the pregnant duchess has been accused of intimidating her former royal advisers, what her team called “an attack on her character”. (Buckingham Palace, meanwhile, added fuel to the fire issuing a statement expressing concern about the allegations made in the UK newspaper The times Meghan harassed employees.) In a separate report, the newspaper accused the first Suits The star wore earrings given to him by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who the CIA cited as having approved the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.
As rumors escalate and discord escalates, Scobie uses his real insider status to shed light on what to expect from Sunday’s special.
When is it?
Oprah with Meghan and Harry: a CBS primetime special airs on Sunday, March 7, from 8 pm to 10 pm on CBS.
Why Oprah?
Why not? Winfrey’s talk show hostess credentials make her a natural celebrity interviewer, but she also has a personal connection with the Sussex that is sure to put the couple at ease. Although it was widely reported that Winfrey attended the couple’s wedding in May 2018 – which she called a “cultural moment” – after spending time with Meghan’s mother, Doria Ragland, Scobie says the “relationship is much deeper “.
According to Scobie, it was Meghan – who was dating Harry but not yet engaged – and instead of his mother, who befriended the media mogul in 2017, after being introduced by a Los Angeles-based business partner. Angeles. That connection “turned into a close friendship very quickly,” he says, prompting Winfrey to offer Ragland a “friendly shoulder” amid the media frenzy surrounding the royal wedding.
In 2019, it was announced that Winfrey would partner with Prince Harry in an Apple TV + documentary on mental health. Although this project was postponed due to the pandemic, they remain in close contact – literally. With the move to Montecito last summer, the couple became Winfrey’s neighbor.
“This is a friendship that builds up over time,” says Scobie, adding that “Oprah really has become an important figure in their lives”.
The meaning of Meghan’s dress
Interview previews show 36-year-old Harry in a gray suit while Meghan, pregnant with the couple’s second child, wears a black silk Armani dress with a lotus flower on the bodice. Sold at a retail price of $ 4,700, the dress’s high price has already sparked some scorn among the Duchess’s critics, although Scobie says it is unlikely that she actually paid so much for the belt number.
“I would challenge any story that claims she spent that amount on a dress,” said the royal correspondent, suggesting that a stylist discount was probably extended because of Meghan’s “high profile” status. “I’m sure it had a different cost to her because, of course, the designer benefits a lot in situations like this.”
Much more interesting, he says, is what the dress – which the former actress combined with Birks earrings and a wide ornament – symbolizes. Scobie says Meghan “wanted something that meant something to the interview” and was attracted to the details of the embroidered lotus, a flower associated with “rebirth and spiritual enlightenment”.
“She liked the story of the lotus, that it was this flower of resilience that submerges in the water every night and returns in the morning refreshed and energized for the new day,” he explains. “As we saw with Meghan, there is always thought that goes into the clothes. I imagine it is not an Armani dress. It was one that sort of marked the box to have some meaning.”
Two accessories worn by the 39-year-old woman also seem to be loaded with meaning: her Cartier bracelet “Love” that was once owned by the late Princess Diana and a necklace by jewelry designer Pippa Small, who has already collaborated with the father of- Prince Charles family law. Harry’s suit, on the other hand, is one of the favorites that he has already worn for memorable moments, including the first photo called of son Archie.
What will be discussed
Two trailers for Sunday’s interview show Harry addressing the tension of British media scrutiny – which he told James Corden last week he was “destroying my mental health” – about the couple, as well as his mother. “I can’t imagine what it must have been like for her to go through this process alone so many years ago, because it was incredibly difficult for both of us, but at least we had each other,” he says in a clip referring to Princess Diana. The royals had already denounced the media’s culpability for the death of their mother in 1997, in a car accident in Paris, while being chased by members of the paparazzi.
In a second preview, he tells Winfrey: “My biggest concern was history repeating itself.”
While Winfrey builds the drama that “there is no subject off limits”, and has catch phrases alluding to Meghan being “silenced”, reaching a “breaking point” and finding her situation “untenable”, Scobie warns that viewers may not necessarily be bombed with bombs. For example, he notes that Harry has spoken publicly about his mental health problems and has made comparisons with Diana before.
Scobie does not expect the couple to call members of the royal family, given Harry’s positive comments about his grandparents during his interview with James Corden, but he will likely be frank about the royal institution itself and the pressures that come with it.
“I think this is where we will have a lot of revelations for the first time,” he predicts, “because it is the first time that they can talk about it without fear of punishment.”
That said, Scobie speculates that “there are many things that they will not be discussing during this interview … It is not a flashy report.”
It is logical that Meghan’s spontaneous abortion and subsequent pregnancy, her recent legal battle and the projects they are undertaking through Archewell, including deals with Netflix and Spotify, will also be under discussion. But, as Scobie says, the interview is currently very “locked” until it airs on Sunday night.
Why the moment is causing controversy
The March 7 broadcast date is making real observers uncomfortable for two reasons, both of which involve Harry’s grandparents. Queen Elizabeth II’s pre-recorded speech, marking Community Day, will be broadcast on BBC One in the UK earlier that day, rather than in person. (The Community Day service last year at Westminster Abbey, incidentally, marked Harry and Meghan’s last public appearance with the royal family before formally resigning.)
A spokesman for Westminster Abbey revealed that the queen’s plans were confirmed before the announcement of the interview with Winfrey, news that some critics of Harry and Meghan considered a disdain for their family. But Scobie says the timing is more of a coincidence than a conflict.
“It caused people to seek a controversy that doesn’t really exist,” he said, noting that while the interview actually airs on CBS in the United States that night – around 1:00 GMT – the UK audience is not you can watch it until Monday night, when it is broadcast on the ITV network.
He acknowledges, however, that the moment when Prince Philip’s hospitalization occurred is more “unhappy”. The 99-year-old man was taken to a London hospital to treat an infection on February 16 and has since been transferred to another hospital for observation of pre-existing heart disease. The interview with CBS, in turn, had been announced just two days earlier.
“Within days of confirming this interview with Oprah, Prince Phillip needed more medical attention,” said Scobie. “And this is a situation that continues to hang heavily in the background … both the queen and the prince are very dear [Harry]. It’s a relationship that has remained strong for the past year, since he left. I’m sure it is a very difficult time. At the same time, it is a decision they have already made; the wheels were already moving. The interview had already ended and I don’t think anyone, including older members of the royal family, would have ever thought that Phillip would have been in the hospital for that long. “
How viewers can react – and why Harry and Meghan are sharing their story anyway
Given the reports published in the days leading up to the interview, it is logical that the critics will be ready to attack. A common refrain from their detractors is that the couple is being hypocritical in complaining about the invasive media attention they received as royalty, but maintaining public profiles. (Even the recent pregnancy announcement drew the ire of critics, accusing them of seeking attention.)
According to Scobie, it is not that Sussexes want to be “virtually anonymous” – they just want to live on their own terms, maintaining “fundamental human rights to privacy”. Sharing a photo of Archie voluntarily on social media, for example, allows them to be public, but they are also in control; not being followed by members of the paparazzi, no.
“Harry and Meghan, as we’ve seen over the years, are doomed if they do and doomed if they don’t,” says Scobie. “But there is a misconception that they want a virtually anonymous life – that they only want to be there when it comes to their charity work. But this is a couple that has obviously been very comfortable in the public eye ”.
He adds that while Harry and Meghan may be opening up to criticism by participating in any interview, that is the target of critics, it is important that they take the time to clarify some issues and address them in their own words, and not through anonymous real sources.
“Everyone talked about them besides them,” he says.
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