Coventry Telegraph

Race claim royal ’is not Queen or Duke’

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OPRAH WINFREY has said the Duke of Sussex told her it was not the Queen or the Duke of Edinburgh who made the racist comment about how dark their baby’s skin would be.

Speaking hours after the bombshell interview aired in the US, Winfrey said Harry had not told her which member of the royal family was involved in the conversati­on.

She told CBS This Morning: “He did not share the identity with me but he wanted to make sure I knew, and if I had an opportunit­y to share it, that it was not his grandmothe­r or grandfathe­r that were part of those conversati­ons.

“He did not tell me who was a part of those conversati­ons.”

The claim that there had been “concerns and conversati­ons” before he was born about how dark Archie’s skin tone might be, was among a series of shocking revelation­s during Harry and Meghan’s candid interview, with the couple also suggesting the family were jealous of Meghan and revealing that she contemplat­ed taking her own life while pregnant.

Appearing vulnerable at times, the duchess revealed that working for The Firm – as the royal family is sometimes known – ultimately left her feeling that ending her life was an option, and how she had not been protected by the monarchy.

Asked explicitly by Winfrey if she was thinking of self-harm and having suicidal thoughts at some stage, Meghan replied: “Yes. This was very, very clear.

“Very clear and very scary. I didn’t know who to turn to in that.”

Harry suggested his family were jealous of Meghan’s popularity with the public – just as the appeal of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, had reportedly been seen as a threat.

And he said he has become estranged from his father, the Prince of Wales, saying: “I feel really let down,” but added that he would make it one of his priorities “to try and heal that relationsh­ip”.

Describing how she had been misreprese­nted in the press, Meghan said the Duchess of Cambridge had made her cry ahead of her wedding – the opposite of reports circulatin­g ahead of the Sussexes’ nuptials that Meghan left Kate in tears at Princess Charlotte’s bridesmaid dress fitting.

In a lighter moment, the couple, who announced in February that they are expecting their second child, said they are due to have a baby girl in the summer.

They also disclosed that they were married by the Archbishop of Canterbury three days before their formal ceremony.

Life behind palace doors has not been exposed to this degree since the days of the “War of the Waleses”, when the turmoil of Charles and Diana’s disintegra­ting marriage was laid bare in the 1990s.

Meghan told Winfrey she had got to the stage where she “just didn’t want to be alive any more”.

When she turned to the institutio­n of the monarchy for help, her request was turned down. “I went to the institutio­n, and I said that I needed to go somewhere to get help.

“I said that I’ve never felt this way before and I need to go somewhere. And I was told that I couldn’t, that it wouldn’t be good for the institutio­n.”

 ??  ?? The Duke and Duchess of Sussex during their interview with Oprah Winfrey
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex during their interview with Oprah Winfrey
 ??  ?? The interview has dominated the media
The interview has dominated the media

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