Duchess of Sussex ‘happy to be home’ and ready to use her voice

THE Duchess of Sussex has revealed she is “happy to be home” after a long absence from the US, saying she is ready to use her voice in a way she has “not been able to of late”.

In her first sit-down interview since returning to her native California in March, the Duchess also took a swipe at the media, which she said had lost the public’s trust. She told Emily Ramshaw, the founder of The 19th, a Texas-based non-profit news organisation, that after spending years in Canada filming Suits, the television drama, and her subsequent time in the UK, she felt she had returned to a different America.

“To come back and to just see this state of affairs, I think at the onset, if I’m being honest, it was just devastating. It was so sad to see where our country was in that moment,” the Duchess, 39, replied when asked by Ms Ramshaw about her “experiences as a biracial woman and mother”.

“From my standpoint, it’s not new to see this undercurrent of racism and certainly unconscious bias, but I think to see the changes that are being made right now is really – it’s something I look forward to being a part of,” she said. “And being part of using my voice in a way that I haven’t been able to of late. So, yeah, it’s good to be home.”

After stepping down from official royal duties earlier this year, the Duchess and Prince Harry moved to California with their one-year-old son, Archie.

It was reported this week that the couple had bought a $15 million (£11million) home in Montecito.

The Duchess, who said she would vote in the forthcoming US presidential election, spoke about the importance of casting a ballot. “We need to be really aware and not take [voting] for granted. My husband, for example, he’s never been able to vote,” she said.

The Duchess went on to criticise a lack of “non-partisan” journalism, saying she and the Duke routinely pointed to an “economy of attention” in the media that rewarded salacious, rather than truthful, reporting. “What’s so fascinating, at least from my standpoint and my personal experience the past couple of years, is that the headline alone, the clickbait alone, makes an imprint,” she said. “That is part of how we start to view the world.”

“You want to have trust in journalism, have trust in what you’re reading. We have become so sadly comfortable that we’re getting all this stuff and it becomes noise as opposed to truth.”