How improper

Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan Markle, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, painted a deeply disturbing picture of their life inside the British royal family before they left it all to live in Southern California.

In an interview with Oprah Winfrey that aired Sunday night, Markle talked about racism, loneliness, a dictatorial palace staff, savage treatment by the tabloid press and feelings of such deep despair that she didn’t want to live anymore.

The couple’s most troubling statement was that someone in the royal family discussed with Harry, during the biracial Markle’s first pregnancy, concerns over “how dark his skin might be when he’s born.”

Harry refused to identify the person, but he told Winfrey after the interview it was neither Queen Elizabeth II nor Prince Philip, his grandparents.

No matter what you make of the interview, it is stunning how quickly Meghan Markle went from being a successful, independent Black woman who captivated Prince Harry and the rest of Britain to being pilloried in the tabloids for transgressions ranging from allegedly being imperious with her personal staff to cradling her baby bump too much when she was pregnant with her first child, Archie.

The woman who was poised to breathe new life into a hidebound British royal family instead felt so dissed and dismissed she and Harry withdrew from royal duties and fled to the U.S.

How shortsighted of the monarchy and its aides not to realize that Markle was one way to make the royal family more relevant in a multi-ethnic world.