Thank God for Oprah and the possibility of gossip
ALL hail Meghan and Harry. Since the first clip of their highly anticipated Oprah interview was released yesterday, I have felt reborn. My WhatsApp groups are on fire, and it’s nothing to do with mutant variants or the news that someone’s mum has just been called for the vaccine. As each message popped up — “have you seen the clip yet??” — we became more hysterical with excitement.
Why? Because this 30-second clip suggests that the pair, who consciously uncoupled with the Royal Family for good last month, are going to provide the biggest TV moment of the year. “Explosive” is the word many have used to trail the sit-down with the chat show queen, and the high-drama teaser suggests it’s going to deliver.
The UK rights to the interview are being hammered out right now, thank God, because I am counting down the days until I can watch it. At last we have something to have a good old-fashioned goss about. Some argue that the pair are hypocritical for fighting for their privacy and then doing an interview that they know will end up on the front page of every paper. The point many of their supporters make is that wanting privacy doesn’t mean that you can never speak publicly, if it’s on your own terms.
Personally, I don’t really care either way. Are they hypocrites? Is their podcast really cringey? Whose garden are they sitting in? I have no idea, I just want to sit and enjoy bombshell revelations spoken by a very beautiful couple in LA who are determined to live by their own rules.
Because the pair really, really want to talk. It’s not something that royals are supposed to do, and that’s why we find it gripping — from Diana’s infamous 1995 Panorama interview to Charles’s chat with Jonathan Dimbleby in 1994. Any time a royal reveals that they’re human, we can’t get enough.
You could see it in Harry’s interview with James Corden last week: sitting on an open decker bus, he admitted he’d never been on one before — “wasn’t allowed”, he said, like he’d been allowed to stay up past 8pm for the first time. You only have to look at how he savours his new-found openness to see how much the buttoned-up life of a royal must have weighed on him.
All facetiousness aside, the pair want to talk about serious subjects, from motherhood to mental health, grief to press reform, and that should be worth listening to. So bring on Sunday night — whatever happens, it will finally give my WhatsApp groups something else to talk about.