Oprah Winfrey is sharing more of her groundbreaking interview with Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, after the two-hour program that aired on CBS on Sunday night.
In previously unreleased clips, the couple discusses why they believe the race influenced the way Meghan was treated by Buckingham Palace and the British tabloids. They also talk about a visit to see Queen Elizabeth, who was suddenly canceled after the couple’s decision to step away from royal duties in early 2020.
The Sunday special saw the Duchess of Sussex break away from previous media narratives, telling Winfrey that Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge, had made her cry days before her wedding. Earlier reports had said that Meghan made Kate cry over preparations for the ceremony.
The Duchess of Sussex also revealed her Second child, due this summer, it would be a girl. They also claimed that there were concerns expressed at Buckingham Palace before the birth of their first child, Archie, about how dark their skin might be. Winfrey, who joined “CBS This Morning” the day after the interview, said Prince Harry wanted to make it clear that the comments were not made by Queen Elizabeth or Prince Phillip.
“CBS This Morning” co-host Gayle King said Winfrey called it the “best interview” of her career.
“Did you leave the country because of racism?” Winfrey asked the couple in the first previously unseen clip.
Prince Harry said “it was a big part of it”, reminiscent of a particular event.
“I remember the Sentebale fundraiser,” he said. “And one of the people at that dinner said to me, ‘Please don’t do this to the media. They will destroy your life. ‘ That person is friends with a lot of publishers and things like that. “
Harry continued, “I said, ‘Sorry, explain what you mean by that?’ So I knew. He said, ‘Please understand that the UK is very prejudiced.’ And I stopped and said, “The UK is not a fanatic. The UK press is intolerant, specifically the tabloids. Is that what you mean?”
“He said, ‘No, the UK is a fanatic.’ And I said, ‘I totally disagree.’ But, unfortunately, if the information source is inherently corrupt, racist or biased, it will be filtered out to the rest of society. “
In the second clip, the Duke of Sussex spoke to Winfrey about how a trip to see Queen Elizabeth II was suddenly canceled after a letter to Buckingham Palace in early 2020 in which they told the royal family that they would be leaving their formal obligations.
“That announcement we made on January 8, 2020, that is – the content was placed in a letter to the institution, to my father, which was then shared in late December, while we were in Canada,” Prince Harry said. “And to return on the 6th, after my grandmother said, ‘The moment you land, go up.'”
Meghan said that she and Harry asked if they could go and see the monarch.
According to Harry, the queen said, “Yes, come to Sandringham. I love having a chat. Come over for tea. Why don’t you stay for dinner? It’s going to be a long trip and you’re going to be exhausted.”
“She wanted us to spend the night,” added Meghan.
The prince said they would have “loved it”, until he received a message from his private secretary “the moment we landed in the UK”
“The private secretary is a kind of CEO role within the institution,” said Meghan.
Harry said that his then private secretary, Fiona, was “cutting and pasting a message from the Queen’s private secretary, basically”.
“Please tell the Duke and Duchess of Sussex that he cannot go to Norfolk. The Queen is busy. She is busy all week,” he said in the letter.
He continued, “She had just invited me. The queen is busy. She’s been busy all week. Don’t come here.”
Harry said he called the grandmother at Frogmore Cottage that night, where the couple lived before Archie’s birth. He asked if he could go anyway, but he heard that she was busy.
“And she said, ‘Yes, I have something in my diary that I didn’t know I had.’ And I said, ‘Well, what about the rest of the week?’ She said, ‘Well, now you’re busy, too. “
He said he didn’t want to push, “because I kind of knew what was going on.”
“Can’t the queen do what the queen wants to do?” Winfrey asked.
Harry said no.
“When you are the head of the company, there are people around you who give you advice,” he said. “And what also made me very sad is that some of the advice was very bad.”
In the two-hour special interview, Meghan and Harry discussed the feeling of alienation from the rest of the royal family, with Harry classifying their relationship with older brother William, Duke of Cambridge, as needing “space”.
The third clip that Winfrey shows on “CBS This Morning” shows the couple describing the environment in which Harry was raised and how the royal family compared Meghan’s coverage in the tabloids with that of Kate, Duchess of Cambridge
“You had these conversations with members of your family. They know why you left,” said Winfrey. “So someone said, ‘I’m sorry that you did this’ or ‘I’m sorry that you felt you had to do this because you felt that we weren’t supporting you’?”
Harry said that no one had.
“The feeling is that this was our decision, so the consequences are on us. And despite three years of asking for help and seeing, or visualizing how it could end – it was, I don’t know, just – look, it’s been very difficult. Because I’m trying. I’m part of the system with them. I always have been. “
The prince said he was aware that his older brother, second in line to the throne, could not leave the system as he had done.
Asked if Prince William really wanted to leave the system, Harry said, “I don’t know. I can’t speak for him.”
“But with that relationship, that control and the fear of the UK tabloids, it’s really – it’s a toxic environment. But I will always be there for him. I will always be there for my family. And like I said, ‘I tried to help them see what happened, “said Prince Harry.
Winfrey asked him if his family – his father Charles, for example – agreed that the environment was toxic.
“No, I think he had to make it up to this,” said Harry.
Meghan said she couldn’t make it up to this alone because the situation was different.
“I think they – which is why I would say, and I also cannot speak for them – if they are not able to see that this was any different, then what happened to Kate when she was, you know,” Meghan said .
Winfrey asked if race was the difference.
“And social media,” replied Meghan. “It didn’t exist. And then it was like the wild west. It spread like wildfire. Also, because it was American, it translated differently into the lake. So, you had a very different noise level. But they they cannot see that it is different. “
“So you were intimidated at the international level?” Winfrey asked.
Meghan said: “I think the volume of what was happening and the interest was greater because of social media, the fact that I am not just British and, unfortunately, if your family members say, ‘Well, this is what it happened to all of us’ – if they can compare the experience I had was similar to what was shared with us. “
She used a nickname given to her sister-in-law before marrying William as an example.
“Kate was called ‘Waity Katie’, hoping to marry William, while I imagine it was very difficult, and I think. I can’t imagine how it went. It’s not the same, ”said Meghan.
She continued, “What if a member of your family comfortably says that we all had to deal with things that are rude, rude and racist are not the same thing.”
The Duchess of Sussex said that the press team that would defend the royal family “when they learn that something is not true” has not come out in their defense.
Winfrey asked Prince Harry if he expected his family to ever recognize that the differences in treatment were about race.
“It would make a big difference,” he said. “Like I said, a lot of people saw what it was like … how people say it all over the world.”
People who do not want to see, Harry said, “choose not to see”.