ROYALS ‘THRONE’ UNDER THE BUS
Harry and 'suicidal' Meg slam his fam
Meghan Markle discussed her tortured relationship with the British royal family during an extended sit-down interview with Oprah Winfrey that aired Sunday night.
Markle, 39, revealed the struggle of being ensnared in a life that played out as fodder for the British tabloids — leading her to contemplate suicide as she and husband, Prince Harry, eventually made their split from “the Firm.”
“I just didn’t want to be alive anymore,” she told Winfrey in the twohour session.
The couple described how their union started off as a fairytale, divulging that they wed in secret by the archbishop of Canterbury three days before their 2018 Windsor Castle ceremony.
Markle and Harry, 34, knew their wedding wouldn’t be the private moment they had hoped for.
“We were both really aware that this wasn’t our day,” Markle said. “This was the day that was planned for the world.”
Markle also claimed that her sister-in-law, Kate Middleton left her in tears before the nuptials, addressing widespread reports that she “made Kate cry” over her flower-girl dresses, insisting, “The reverse happened.”
“Everyone in the institution knew it wasn’t true,” Markle said, adding she wasn’t sure why no one from the royal family had denied the reports of a rift between the two women.
She didn’t divulge any details about the tiff except to acknowledge it was over the dresses, saying, “There wasn’t a confrontation. I don’t think it’s fair to her to get into the details because she apologized, and I’ve forgiven her.”
Markle went into her new life “naively,” she said, “because I didn’t grow up knowing much about the royal family.”
Even before her wedding, she had to be taught to curtsey just moments prior to meeting Queen Elizabeth for the first time.
Still, “everyone welcomed me,” she said of the family.
However, Markle, who is American, said that she realized after the nuptials that the royal institution itself didn’t have her back.
“It was only once we were married, everything started to worsen, that I came to understand that not only was I not being protected. They were willing to lie to protect other members of the family,” she told Oprah.
She also described feelings of loneliness after the wedding and how “there was very little that I was allowed to do,” comparing her situation to the coronavirus lockdowns.
“I continued to say to people, ‘I know there’s an obsession with how things look, but has anyone talked about how it feels? Because right now, I could not feel lonelier.’ ”
While pregnant with son Archie, Markle, who is biracial, said she was told he wouldn’t have a royal title and wouldn’t be entitled to security, and described being told of concerns over “how dark his skin might be when he was born.”
Harry strongly implied that while members of the monarchy initially welcomed Markle, they soured on her and became jealous after seeing how popular she was on the couple’s first tour to Australia.
It “hurts,” Harry said, that his relatives did not speak out in defense of Markle in the press.
“There was an opportunity for my family to show public support,” but they didn’t, he said, adding that they were likely afraid of the tabloids turning on them.
The couple’s hotly anticipated CBS interview provided an unprecedented peek into their sensational split from the British royal family.
The former TV actress slammed Buckingham Palace, accusing the royals of “perpetuating falsehoods” against her and Harry.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex left their royal duties last March over what they said was the British press’ unfair and racist treatment of Markle.
During the interview, Harry also said part of the reason the couple left the monarchy was over a “lack of support and lack of understanding” from the institution.
The pair denied that they “blindsided” the queen by leaving, saying there were two years of conversations about their departure before they officially announced it.
The prince said his father, Prince Charles, stopped taking his calls amid the separation “because by that point I took matters into my own hands.”
“I’ve got to do something for my own mental health and for my wife and for Archie as well,” Harry said.
Growing up royal, Harry said, he felt “trapped.” “My father and my brother [Prince William] are trapped,” he added. “They don’t get to leave. And I have compassion for that.”
Markle also pushed back at the insinuation that it had been her plan all along to live independently.
“Our plan was to do this forever,” she said of the couple’s royal duties.
The self-exiled pair is now settled in Montecito, Calif., with Archie, who will turn 2 in May. They’re also expecting another baby, a girl, due this summer, they revealed.
Markle wrote late last year about suffering a miscarriage, and the couple said they are “extremely grateful” for the pregnancy. They said they plan to stop at two children.
Wearing an empire-style black Armani dress, Markle spoke oneon-one with Winfrey before being joined by Harry.
During the sit-down, Harry invoked the memory of his late mother, Princess Diana, who was killed in a car accident in Paris in 1997 after being chased by paparazzi.
“I’m just really relieved and happy to be sitting here talking to you with my wife by my side, because I can’t begin to imagine what it must have been like for [Diana] going through this process by herself all those years ago,” he said, adding, “because it’s been unbelievably tough for the two of us.”
“She would feel very angry with how this has panned out and very sad,” he said about his mother.
“All she would ever want was for
us to be happy.”
Harry shared that the royal family has cut him and Markle off financially in the year since Megxit. The couple is living off his inheritance from his mom, he said, adding “Without that, we would not be able to do this,” in reference to leaving the monarchy.
“I think she saw it coming,” he said about Diana, who spoke out about her struggles in the royal family and within her marriage to Charles, which ended in divorce in 1992.
Harry said he’s trying to mend his relationship with his father and older brother.
“There’s a lot to work through . . . I feel really let down,” he said.
The couple’s no-holds-barred interview comes as Harry’s 99-yearold grandfather, Prince Philip, the queen’s husband, remains hospitalized in London after undergoing a heart procedure.
It also follows the announcement of a palace probe into explosive allegations published in a UK newspaper that Markle bullied palace staffers during her short stint as a senior royal. She and Harry have denied the claims and said they are victims of a calculated “smear campaign.”
It’s unclear what the royal response will be to the Oprah interview. The Times of London, citing an anonymous source, reported that the queen would not watch it.
British audiences won’t be able to see the full special until Monday night when it airs on ITV.
In the final moments of their interview, the couple were asked whether they had any regrets.
“My regret is believing them when they said I would be protected,” Markle said, with Harry adding that had the palace shielded them, “We wouldn’t have left.”
The prince said that his relationship with Markle had saved him, and she countered that it was him who had “certainly saved my life, and saved all of us,” referring to their family.
“We did what we had to do,” Harry said.
The sensational sitdown closed with Markle saying, “I’m proud of us.” Their story, she added, is “greater than any fairytale you’ve ever read.”
IF you had any doubts that Meghan Markle is a manipulative piece of work, her bombshell Oprah interview Sunday night dumping on the British monarchy would set you straight. Prince Harry’s American wife accused his family of hateful racism against her baby, claimed they refused to protect her and drove her to the point of suicide.
She made the incendiary and implausible charge that when she was pregnant with Archie, the royal family decreed that her unborn son would be denied the title of “prince” because her mixed race meant he might have dark skin.
You could make no more damaging charge about a monarchy that presides over a commonwealth of nations made up of a majority of people of color.
So this was the root of Megxit: Meghan convinced herself that the royal family was denying her son a title — and the security protection that came with it — because of his potentially dark skin.
She didn’t personally care about “all the grandeur” of a title, oh, no, but was upset about “our son not being safe and the idea the first member of color in this family not being titled in the same way other grandchildren would be.”
Harry didn’t join her until the second hour of the tell-all, but Oprah let viewers know that he had been listening to every word.
He did not defend his family but acknowledged a conversation with a relative early in his relationship with Meghan that had included the question: “What will the kids look like,” alluding to the color of their skin.
Whatever the accuracy of his recollection, it does not bolster Meghan’s allegation that Archie was denied a title because of his race.
Harry said he was hurt that no one in his family called out the press for the “colonial undertones of articles and headlines about Meghan.”
Meghan claimed she never read negative press coverage about herself yet was devastated by it and said the royal family refused to intervene to stop it.
She then became suicidal: “I just didn’t want to be alive anymore. It was a really clear and real and frightening constant thought.”
She claimed life in the royal family was “almost unsurvivable” and she would be dead if they hadn’t left England.
Harry, 36, looked grim and joyless for the hour he sat holding his wife’s hand and answering Oprah’s probing questions. Even when Meghan, 39, gave him permission to reveal the sex of their unborn baby — it’s a girl — his smile and little fist pump seemed strained.
When Oprah asked what “delights him” about his new life with Archie and Meghan, there was a long, uncomfortable pause when he looked desolate. He eventually cited walks on the beach and riding a bicycle with Archie.
Meghan also threw her sister-inlaw, Kate, under the bus, saying that the future queen had made her cry the week before her own wedding, and yet the palace allowed the media to say it was she who had made Kate cry.
“That was a turning point,” Meghan said.
“The narrative with Kate which didn’t happen was really, really difficult and something that I think that’s where everything changed . . .
“The reverse happened, and I don’t say that to be disparaging to anyone because it was a really hard week of the wedding and she was upset about something but she owned it and she apologized and she brought me flowers… What was shocking was six, seven months after the wedding the reverse of that would be out in the world . . . I would have never wanted that to come out about her ever even . . . I protected that from being out in the world.”
This is just psychotic. Get over it. Even if what she says is true, she got her apology note and her flowers. Move on.
She appears jealous of Kate and Kate’s position above her in the royal pecking order, but has persuaded Harry it was Kate’s jealousy that fractured the relationship.
Meghan ensnared Harry by acting out the worst nightmare of his childhood, when his beloved mother was killed with her lover in a car crash when Harry was 12.
He was powerless to save his mother then, but he is determined to save Meghan from what she led him to believe was “history repeating itself.”
“My biggest concern was history repeating itself,” Harry said, holding hands with Meghan as she gazed adoringly at him, clad in a $4,700 black Armani dress and patting her pregnant belly.
“I’m just really relieved and happy to be sitting here talking to you with my wife by my side because I can’t begin to imagine what it must have been like for [my mother] going through this process by herself all those years ago.”
You see how it works? Asked how Buckingham Palace would react to “hearing you speak your truth today?” Meghan was smugly triumphant.
“I don’t know how they could expect that after all of this time, we would still just be silent if there was an active role that ‘the Firm’ is playing in perpetuating falsehoods about us.”
You only have to remember how cruelly she treated her own father and sister after she met Harry to understand how pitiless she is.
Now she is intent on inflicting the same cruelty, or worse, on her husband’s family.