Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
HARRY & MEG Nothing’s offlimits
INTERVIEW Duke and Duchess have agreed to a tell-all chat with Oprah
PRINCE Harry and wife Meghan have apparently told Oprah Winfrey she can ask any questions she likes when she interviews the couple.
Royal insiders fear the prince is going to “live to regret” the televised chat.
It is understood senior royals have voiced deep concern about Harry’s “new found direction” but that they have no plans to try to persuade him or Meghan to cancel the interview.
US broadcaster Gayle King, 66, who is close friends with Oprah and Meghan, said: “I’m told nothing is off limits.
“[Oprah] can ask anything she wants.”
US network CBS announced on Monday that Oprah, 67, will talk to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex about their decision to quit as senior royals and leave the UK, and how she is handling life with such intense public scrutiny. Harry, 36, and Meghan, 39, are thought to have been organising the primetime interview for a considerable period and plan to use it to mark the start of a new chapter in their lives.
As it emerged there are no limits on what will be asked, royal sources revealed there are questions about why the couple have agreed to be grilled.
Palace insiders referred to calamitous interviews with senior royals such as Prince Andrew’s chat on Newsnight in 2019.
A source said: “Questions are being asked why Harry would ever think this is a good idea. He may have been convinced Oprah Winfrey is a trusted friend, despite only meeting her a handful of times, but the history with these sorts of interviews [is they have] often ended with disastrous consequences.
“The over-riding feeling is he will very much live to regret it.”
In a further blow to relations, Harry is set to lose all his remaining royal patronages and honorary military roles, it is understood.
Harry is said to be “upset” about the Queen’s decision to force the couple to give up all the positions they kept when they stepped down as working members of the Firm.
Meanwhile, a source has talked of the “contradiction” that Harry is
REVELATION Telly presenter Gayle King
taking part in a huge TV interview after saying on a tour of Africa in 2019 how he found it hard being in the public eye. The insider said: “It seems a strange sequence of events that Harry said he could not stand the sight or sound of cameras and insisted he and Meghan wanted to live a very private life and now he is inviting the cameras into his home to be beamed round the world.
“It is a sheer contradiction in terms.” The Queen, Prince Charles and Prince William were not informed of Harry and Meghan’s decision to go ahead with the 90-minute broadcast, set to air on March 7. Palace aides only discovered the news on Twitter on Monday night.
Harry and Meghan, who announced days ago she is expecting their second child, stepped down as senior royals last March. Since then they have signed deals thought to be worth well over £100million with Netflix and Spotify, and have bought a luxury home in the celebrity enclave of Montecito in California.
It is being asked why he would ever think this is a good idea ROYAL SOURCE ON THE REACTION TO INTERVIEW