Will Harry and Meghan reveal big secrets?
What to expect from their Oprah interview
It’s an embarrassment of riches for royal fans and critics this weekend, when Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan sit down with Oprah Winfrey for their first American TV interview, and Queen Elizabeth II and a clutch of other royals take to the airwaves in Britain for their first TV-only Commonwealth Day service on the BBC.
Both broadcasts are taking place Sunday. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex will chat with Oprah for two hours on “Oprah With Meghan and Harry: A CBS Primetime Special” airing at 8 in North America.
The Commonwealth Day broadcast will air on BBC in the afternoon in the U.K., and then on YouTube.
The Sussex interview was a surprise when CBS announced it last week. In two promos that aired Sunday, Meghan doesn’t speak, but Winfrey appears to quote her, calling the couple’s frustrations “almost unsurvivable.” She asks: “Were you silent or were you silenced?”
In contrast, the Commonwealth program has been in the works for weeks because of the coronavirus pandemic, which ruled out the usual in-person service to protect the 94-yearold Queen and everybody else from COVID-19.
So why are both events happening now?
This TV blitz comes at a moment of uncertainty about 99year-old Prince Philip’s health. The Queen’s husband has been in London hospitals since Feb. 16 battling an infection and a pre-existing heart condition. On Monday, he was transferred to a specialized cardiac hospital for testing and observation and was expected to stay there until the end of the week.
The Oprah interview has been described by their critics as another skirmish in the conflict between the Royal Family and the Sussexes. Sally Bedell Smith, the acclaimed American author of multiple royal biographies, doesn’t believe the scheduling is a coincidence.
“There’s no logical reason to
“Why the urgency, why not wait a week? That would be the sensible, thoughtful and considerate thing for Harry and Meghan to have done, once they realized this would coincide with the Commonwealth ceremony.”
SALLY BEDELL SMITH AUTHOR OF MULTIPLE ROYAL BIOGRAPHIES
do these on the same night,” Bedell Smith says. “CBS could juggle its schedule. Why the urgency, why not wait a week? That would be the sensible, thoughtful and considerate thing for Harry and Meghan to have done, once they realized this would coincide with the Commonwealth ceremony.”
Winfrey’s interview will first focus on Meghan, with topics ranging from “stepping into life as a royal, marriage, motherhood (and) philanthropic work, to how she is handling life under intense public pressure,” CBS said in a statement about the special. Harry will join them later to talk about their move to the U.S. and their hopes and dreams for their family.
The subject of their American-born second baby, expected later this year, will come up, as will Harry’s relationship with his relatives, especially brother Prince William. They’re also likely to talk about their ongoing effort to push back against media coverage they consider invasive and abusive.
What are British media outlets saying about the interview?
The London tabloids that regularly berate Harry and Meghan predict the interview will be explosive, incendiary, and a slap at the Queen and the Royal Family.
The tabloids report their palace sources say the Sussexes did not tell the Queen about it ahead of time, even though they were under no obligation to do so given their changed status.
“Historically, long-form interviews with royals haven’t always gone well or achieved the desired results,” says Victoria Arbiter, CNN’s royal correspondent and the daughter of a former press secretary to the Queen.
Thus, some tabloids have compared this interview to the surprise interview Princess Diana did with the BBC in 1995, which had the effect of blowing up what little remained of the romantic fantasy of the “fairytale” marriage of Diana and Prince Charles, by then a nightmare of infidelity, embarrassing media leaks and mental health stress.
But the situation is different for the interview with Winfrey, who’s become a friend and champion of Harry and Meghan. Three years on, the couple’s marriage remains strong.
“They’re not going to throw the Royal Family under a bus,” Arbiter says. “To what end? It would not serve them well … I don’t think this is going to be the catastrophic royal-bashing, mud-slinging interview some have suggested.”
Why does Commonwealth Day matter?
Every year, the royal clan gathers on the second Monday in March at Westminster Abbey for a service to mark Commonwealth Day, a national ritual that allows the British taxpayers to see members of the royal “firm” paying tribute to countries around the world that still have a link to Britain.
An organization of more than 50 mostly former British Empire colonies, the Commonwealth is important to the Queen because it was started by her father, George VI, and because she has championed it from the time of her accession in 1952, says Robert Hardman, a British journalist and author of “Queen of the World,” about the Queen’s relationship with the Commonwealth.
Last year’s Commonwealth Day service was the last public engagement for Harry and Meghan with the family before the couple departed the U.K. Having just negotiated their exit with his disappointed relatives and angry senior courtiers, the abbey service was an awkward affair, heavy with unspoken tension between Harry and his brother.