WHAT WE LEARNED FROM HARRY-MEGHAN EXPLOSIVE INTERVIEW
From suicidal thoughts to race —Harry and his wife lift the lid on life inside Britain’s royal family with an explosive interview that reverberated around the world |
Oprah Winfrey’s interview with Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, had been teased for days. So it was a shock to find when it aired Sunday night that it included a number of explosive revelations about the couple and their fraught relationship with the British royal family. Here are the takeaways:
Meghan’s life as a royal had made her suicidal
One of the most revelatory moments of the CBS interview came when Meghan talked about contemplating suicide while living as a member of the British royal family. “I was ashamed to have to admit it to Harry,” she said. “I knew that if I didn’t say it, I would do it. I just didn’t want to be alive anymore.” Meghan said at one point she asked a senior royal about the possibility of seeking inpatient care, and was told that would not be possible since it “wouldn’t be good for the institution.”
She was subjected to relentless racist attacks
From the beginning, the couple said, the tabloids were vicious to Meghan, making unabashedly racist comments about her. The question of her race also infused her relationship with the royal family. They believed it might have been a factor in the family’s decision not to grant their son, Archie, a title or to provide security protection for him. In one of the most shocking moments in the interview, Meghan mentioned a conversation Harry had with a member of the royal household while she was pregnant with their firstborn. “We have in tandem the conversation of ‘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 said.
Of his father, Harry said, ‘I feel really let down’
One of the most memorable moments of Harry and Meghan’s wedding is the image of Prince Charles, Harry’s father, walking Meghan down the aisle and Harry saying to his father, “Thank you, Pa.” How things have changed. It was striking to hear Harry describe his father as not taking his phone calls and asking him to put things into writing when he and Meghan were weighing taking a step back from their roles as senior royals. Harry later said that Charles was now taking his calls again, but that “there’s a lot to work through there.”
“I feel really let down, because he’s been through something similar,” Harry said, referring to the way the news media had hounded his mother, Princess Diana.
Royal family failed to correct false narrative
The tabloid stories came one after the other, Meghan said: About her diva-like behavior, about how she had bullied her staff, about her supposed rift with her sister-in-law, Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge. Not only were they not true, Meghan said, but the royal family did nothing to correct them. She came to understand that the royal family was “willing to lie to protect other members of the family, but they weren’t willing to tell the truth to protect me and my husband.”
‘My family literally cut me off financially’
Most members of the royal family receive money each year from the family coffers in exchange for carrying out official engagements. But when he introduced Meghan to the family, Harry said, that arrangement already seemed to be in jeopardy. Members of his family suggested that she continue acting, “because there wasn’t enough money to pay for her,” Harry said.
He and Meghan said they pleaded with the royal family to pay for security for them and their son, only to be refused each time. Then, when he and Meghan moved to the US, Harry said, the royal family stopped giving them money. “My family literally cut me off financially,” Harry said. When Oprah pressed him on the point, he amended it to “the first half, the first quarter of 2020,” leaving it open whether any money had arrived after that.