meghan markle oprah
Joe Pugliese/Harpo Productions

Every Sad, Shocking Thing Meghan and Harry Told Oprah

This was so much more revealing than anyone anticipated

“I wasn’t planning to shock you,” Meghan Markle tells Oprah Winfrey mid-way through their primetime interview. “I’m just telling you what happened.”

As she tells it, a whole lot seems to have happened in Meghan’s four years as a royal—and in last night’s much-hyped interview, neither she nor Harry held back on dropping bombshell after bombshell about it. We’ll be talking about this for a long time. Trust us: When Oprah’s shocked, you will be, too. The scenes at Buckingham Palace right now? Oh, to be a fly…

A little background Oprah made clear up top: The interview wasn’t filmed at either of their homes (despite the fact that they live “down the road” from each other), they did not discuss or vet any of the questions beforehand, nothing was off the table—and the couple did not get paid to do it.

Here’s everything you missed if you didn’t dedicate two hours of your Sunday evening to CBS Presents Oprah with Meghan and Harry.

1. Meghan had suicidal thoughts—and was denied help when she sought it

In one of the interview’s most poignant moments, Meghan shares that she had “very clear and very scary” thoughts about ending her life, as a direct result of the negative tabloid coverage and what she perceived as a lack of support from the palace. “I just didn’t see a solution…and it was all happening just because I was breathing,” she says, recounting how she’d stay up at night, feeling like “I just didn’t want to be alive anymore.”

It got to a point where she wanted to seek professional help at an institution, a request she made to senior royals multiple times, but she was told no. “I was told it wouldn’t look good,” Meghan recounts. She even went to the palace’s HR department in desperation, and was told, “My heart goes out to you, but there’s nothing I can do to help you because you’re not a paid employee.” Meghan’s mental health was the breaking point, and catalyst for the Sussexes’ decision to step back. She says she found a confidant in one of Diana’s best friends, “one of the few people who knew what it was really like in there.”

2. A senior royal brought up concerns Archie’s skin would be dark

Meghan says that it was not her and Harry’s decision not to give their son a “prince” title. In fact, they would have happily given him one if it entitled him to security protection, and, as Meghan points out, there was huge significance in it. But she says they were told their child would not have a title, he would not be offered security—and the palace planned to change an old statute to ensure this wouldn’t automatically happen when Charles became king, as is the long tradition.

If a lot of this sounds implicitly racist? Try this explicit example: “This was happening in tandem with conversations about how dark his skin would be when he was born,” says Meghan, who heard it second-hand from Harry. “There was no explanation.” When Harry joins the interview, Oprah circles back to this shocking allegation and asks him about it. He says he’s “not comfortable sharing” who it was. [Update: This morning on CBS, Oprah confirmed it was not “his grandmother or his grandfather”.]

3. Meghan says Kate made her cry before the wedding, not vice versa

Meghan claims that not only is the much-circulated story of her making Kate cry in the lead-up to the wedding false, it was actually Kate who made Meghan cry. According to Meghan, the incident was, as tabloids claimed, over the bridesmaid’s dresses, but that’s when the truth ends. “I don’t say this to be disparaging to Kate,” she says. “She’s a good person.” BUT: “It was a very hard week before the weekend, and she got upset, and she owned it and she brought me flowers and she apologized.”

While she doesn’t get into the specifics, Meghan does say “it really upset” her, and it felt particularly difficult that it happened when she was dealing with a tough situation with her dad. “It wasn’t a confrontation,” she continued. “I’ve forgiven her.” Where her ire still lies, however, is with the “institution” that didn’t correct this false story about her, and she calls it a turning point in her time as a royal. “It was the beginning of a character assassination,” she says.

4. Meghan and Harry got married in private before their wedding

Early on, we’re treated to a glimpse of Meghan and Harry’s life in Montecito (they have chickens that live in a henhouse called “Archie’s Chick Inn”!), and Meghan casually drops that “the vows we have framed in our room are us in the backyard with the Archbishop of Canterbury.” That’s right: The couple called up the arch-bish and asked him to marry them three days before the big wedding we all watched, out of a desire to have a day that was actually for them, not the public. Cue Harry singing a falsetto “Just the three of us” while tossing chicken feed.

5. Meghan felt the “institution” failed to protect her

While she makes a point of saying that the Queen was always “warm and welcoming” to her, Meghan makes a stark indictment of how “the institution” of the monarchy treated her. “They were willing to lie to protect other members of the family, but they weren’t willing to tell the truth about my husband and I,” she says of the relentless, remorseless battering she got in the tabloids, the palace’s inaction in response—and their directive that she do nothing as well.

“The sad irony of the last four years is that I’ve advocated so long for women to use their voice, and I was silent.” Oprah then asked her “Were you silent, or were you silenced?” and she replies “the latter.” Harry, who joins the conversation later, adds that “early on” there were signs that Meghan would be treated differently—because of her race, he implies—including suggestions that she didn’t need security, or that she should continue acting because “they couldn’t pay for her.”

6. Meghan’s passport was taken away

Meghan speaks of the loneliness of her new life, exacerbated by the palace’s directive that she “lay low” to stay out of the tabloids. She recalls asking if she could go out for lunch with her friends, and being told it wasn’t a good idea because she was “oversaturated.” To which she replied that she’d left the house twice in two months. Elsewhere, she shared a chilling detail that her passport, driver’s licence and keys were all taken from her. “There was very little I was allowed to do.”

7. One of her lowest moments as a royal was caught on camera

Meghan shared a memory of a day after she’d asked for help for her suicidal thoughts and was told no. She was pregnant with Archie, and she and Harry had to go to an engagement at the Royal Albert Hall. A friend sent her a picture taken that night because she thought the couple looked so great. But for Meghan, it was a reminder of one of her lowest days—and an event she attended only because she didn’t trust herself to be left alone. “I see how tightly his knuckles are gripped around mine,” she says of the picture. “We are smiling and doing our job, but we’re trying to hold on.” She says every time the lights went down on the royal box, she wept, and then dried her tears when the lights came up, and all eyes were back on them.

8. Meghan says the royal family welcomed her at first—then turned on her

Meghan says the royals initially made her feel very welcome, although she points out there was a marked lack of the “princess lessons” you read about in tabloids. “I was the one Googling the national anthem late at night,” says Meghan, who says she received no training whatsoever from the palace.

“It changed after our Australia tour,” says Harry. “It was the first time the family got to see how incredible she is at her job, and it brought back memories.” Memories of Diana, and how she outshone Charles on her own antipodean tour, prodded Oprah? “I just wish we would all learn from the past,” says Harry.

Speaking of Harry’s mother, Meghan mentions that her mom, Doria, recently asked her if Diana had done a TV interview, to illustrate how little she grew up knowing about this institution. “I didn’t do my research. I didn’t Google my husband.” As an American, she says she “didn’t fully understand what the job was.” Later, she says she didn’t understand that these weren’t just “famous people.”

9. Harry says his family is “scared of the tabloids”

Harry, who, reveals he has watched some of The Crown, paints a portrait of the real-life institution that is even less flattering than the fictionalized one on TV. “It’s a very trapping environment,” he says, recalling the period when Meghan’s mental health reached a breaking point. “I didn’t have anyone to turn to. The family have this mentality of ‘This is how it is’.” He implies that they’d all suffered at the hands of the tabloids, and couldn’t understand why Meghan thought her situation was so much worse, something Harry struggled with. “The way I saw it, for this union, and the specifics around her race, there were many opportunities for my family to show support. No one said anything.”

Harry also goes into detail about the “invisible contract” between the royals and the British press: “If you as a family member are willing to wine, dine and give full access” to the media, you’ll get kinder treatment. “There is a level of control by fear that has existed for generations,” he says.

10. Harry’s relationships with Charles and William are strained

Harry says if hadn’t met Meghan, he’d probably still be “trapped in the system,” just like his father and brother are. “They don’t get to leave,” he says, “and I have compassion for that.” That said, both of those relationships are strained. Of his father, he says, “There’s a lot to work through there. I feel really let down, because he’s been through something similar. He knows what pain feels like…and Archie’s his grandson. I will always love him but there’s a lot of hurt that’s happened.” 

As for William, he says, “I love him to bits…we’ve been through hell together,” but he describes their current relationship as one of “space.”

11. They say they were essentially pushed out of the royal family

Despite stories that the Queen had been “blindsided” by the Sussexes’ announcement in January 2020 that the couple wanted to “step back,” Meghan and Harry say it had been under discussion for at least two years. Harry says that while they were in Canada, he had three calls with the Queen about it, and two with his father, “before he stopped taking my calls.” The Sussexes’ plan was never to quit entirely, they say, but to assume less senior roles like many other titled working royals. Their version is that it was unilaterally decided for them that this would never work. The palace cut off their security detail at this time (Harry says he was able to pay for his own security using money Diana left him), and Harry was cut off financially as of the first quarter of 2020. He says they pursued their Netflix and Spotify deals to fund their security.

12. They’re having a girl!

After an interview filled with a lot of heavy, sad, hard things, let’s end on the fun bit of news the couple shared: They’re having a girl, and she’s due in the summertime. Oh, and they’re really, really happy now. “It’s better than any fairy tale,” says Meghan.

 

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