Social media reacted with wide-ranging discussions on racial attitudes Monday morning after Sunday night’s nationally broadcast interview with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
In a two-hour interview with Oprah Winfrey, Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan Markle, painted a deeply unflattering picture of life inside the royal household, depicting a cold, uncaring institution that they had to flee to save their lives.
Meghan told Winfrey that at one point “I just didn’t want to be alive anymore” and that she had uncontrollable suicidal thoughts. She said she sought help through the palace’s human resources department but was told there was nothing they could do.
Meghan, 39, admitted that she was naive at the start of her relationship with Harry and unprepared for the strictures of royal life.
The former television star, who identifies as biracial, said when she was pregnant with their son, Archie, there were “concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he’s born.”
Harry confirmed the conversation, saying: “I was a bit shocked.” He said he would not reveal who made the comment, but Winfrey revealed Monday morning that it was not Queen Elizabeth or Prince Philip.
The pair, known as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, announced they were quitting royal duties last year, citing what they said were the unbearable intrusions and racist attitudes of the British media. That split became official earlier this year, and the interview was widely seen as their first opportunity to explain their decision.
The interview was broadcast Sunday night in the United States and will air in Britain on Monday night.
Harry, born a royal prince, described how his wife’s experience had helped him realize how he and the rest of the family were stuck in an oppressive institution.
“I was trapped, but I didn’t know I was trapped,” Harry said. “My father and my brother, they are trapped.”
Meghan, he said, “saved me.”
The younger royals — including Harry, Meghan, Harry’s brother, Prince William, and William’s wife, Catherine — have made campaigning for support and awareness around mental health one of their priorities.
But Harry said the royal family was completely unable to offer that support to its own members.
“For the family, they very much have this mentality of ‘This is just how it is, this is how it’s meant to be, you can’t change it, we’ve all been through it,’” Harry said.
The couple had faced severe criticism in the United Kingdom before the interview. Prince Philip, Harry’s 99-year-old grandfather, is in a London hospital after recovering from a heart procedure, and critics saw the decision to go forward as being a burden on the queen — even though CBS, rather than Harry and Meghan, dictated the timing of the broadcast.
Meghan — then known as Meghan Markle, who had starred on the American TV legal drama “Suits” — married Harry, a grandson of Queen Elizabeth II, at Windsor Castle in May 2018.
But even that was not what it seemed: The couple revealed in the interview that they exchanged vows in front of Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby three days before their spectacular wedding ceremony at the castle.
“We called the archbishop and we just said, ‘Look, this thing, this spectacle is for the world, but we want our union between us,’” Meghan said.
Archie was born the following year, and in a rare positive moment in the interview, the couple revealed their second child, due in the summer, would be a girl.
Holding hands, Harry and Meghan sat opposite Winfrey while she questioned them in a lush garden setting. The couple lives in Montecito, California, where they are Winfrey’s neighbors.
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