Among them: Archie, her son now almost two years old with her husband, Prince Harry, received no royal titles or protection.
While she became pregnant with him, Meghan said, she was informed that the royal family did not want the baby to have the title of prince / princess. This meant that he would receive none of the security that is normally offered to real children.
The logic from The Firm (as the royal family is often called) seemed to be that, because he would not be a prince, he would not need protection, said Meghan.
“He needs to be safe,” she told Oprah. “If you’re saying that the title is what will affect their protection – we didn’t create this monster machine around us, in terms of clickbait and tabloid fodder. You have [The Firm] allowed that to happen, which means that our son needs to be safe. “
She did not elaborate on who in the royal family was making these decisions.
CBS The Duchess of Sussex, portrayed during her interview with Oprah Winfrey.
Archie’s title itself was not particularly important to the couple, Meghan said. “All the greatness around these things is an attachment that I don’t really have.”
But, in addition to knowing that their baby would not be protected, it also seemed to them that the rules were being changed in a way that would negatively affect the child.
There was the “idea that our son is not safe, and also the idea that the first colored member of this family does not have the same title as the other grandchildren”.
It was hard not to consider Meghan’s race and that of the baby, she said, due to other conversations that she knew were going on behind the scenes.
Did that mean, Oprah asked, if the baby was “to be too brown, would that be a problem?”
“I haven’t been able to explain why, but if that’s the assumption you’re making, I think it looks like a very safe one,” said Meghan. “Which is very difficult to understand.”
Pool via Getty Images The Duke and Duchess of Sussex and their baby son Archie Mountbatten-Windsor in a meeting with Archbishop Desmond Tutu during his royal trip to South Africa on September 25, 2019 in Cape Town.
The only son who automatically receives the title of prince is Prince George, the first son of Prince William and Kate Middleton, and that is because he is the eldest son of the eldest son of the monarch’s heir.