Just how damaging was the interview Oprah Winfrey did with Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, on Sunday, March 7 on CBS? Put Prince Charles’ revelations about him never loving Diana, Princess of Wales, together with Diana’s “there were three in this marriage”, multiply it a gazillion times and you have an idea of the damage quotient not only for the royal family but for the Sussexes as well.
There were lots of revelations — the couple are having a girl in the summer; they were wed three days before the televised wedding; they were not only unprotected by a jealous palace but in effect thrown under the bus by a “Firm” that denied their biracial son, Archie, a title and its accompanying security, which many of Queen Elizabeth II’s great-grandchildren do not have. Pushed to suicidal thoughts, the duchess said she was nonetheless committed to a royal life in which her husband added that he, his father and his brother, Prince William, were all trapped. Still, the couple said they left because they had no support.
Shocking if perhaps unsurprising. There is, however, a disconnect here. On the one hand, the duchess said she is glad she had the experience of being a working woman from the time she was 13 years old serving up frozen yogurt in the Humphrey Yogart shop. Yet she knew little of the royal family, did no research and was “a little naive” when she became engaged to the prince. But wouldn’t a sophisticated actress, surely a quick study, do at least a Google search? Wouldn’t a grown American have known that the British national anthem, “God Save the Queen,” is the same tune as “My Counry ’Tis of Thee” with different words? How much do you really have to practice a curtsy? Do you really have to go to duchess school?
There was also a bit of shade-throwing even as certain issues were skirted. It was Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, who made Meghan cry, not vice versa, over Princess Charlotte’s bridesmaid’s dress. Kate healed the rift with an apology and flowers, Meghan said, because she is “a good person.” So why bring it up? And why not mention that Kate had just had a baby, Prince Louis?? Given that Meghan is a feminist champion of women — every one of the million commercials on the special was about women, too — and that her own later suicidal thoughts might’ve been spurred by pregnancy hormones, why didn’t she have any compassion for the sister-in-law who had been the sister her husband never had and who three weeks after having a baby had to serve as hostess for the couple’s wedding reception? Was Meghan unaware of how vicious the tabloid press was to Kate when she first joined the royal family?
Of course, that was all about social class. Kate’s family worked for a living. Her mother, Carole Middleton, had been — horrors of horrors to the snobby tabloid press — a flight attendant. With Meghan, the issue was not class but race — a motif that threaded the interview. Both she and Harry refused to name the royal who worried about how dark Archie would be. They didn’t have to. Oprah’s gobsmacked reaction said it all.
What is important, Meghan said, is narrative and the truth of that narrative. She was talking about the couple’s new Archewell production company and foundation, which they added was never their game plan as they never planned to abandon their royal lives. They just wanted to be junior rather than senior royals. Both Harry and Meghan acknowledged a good relationship with his grandmother. Meghan even offered a charming anecdote in which the queen shared a blanket used to warm her legs with her on a royal train trip.
Nevertheless, Harry’s relationship with his father and brother remains distant. Given the narrative the couple have spun on CBS, it may be a divide a long time in the bridging.