Queen holds crisis talks after Harry and Meghan’s bombshell Oprah interview

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Buckingham Palace was paralysed with ‘horror and dismay’ last night as Prince Harry stood accused of ‘blowing up his family’ with his bombshell interview.

The Queen, Prince Charles and Prince William were all locked in crisis talks over how to react to a string of incendiary accusations unleashed by Harry and wife Meghan during a two-hour special with Oprah Winfrey on American TV.

With pressure growing for a statement today, Palace insiders described a mood of ‘intense personal shock and sadness’ that the prince had pressed the ‘nuclear button on his own family’. ‘People are just reeling,’ a source said.

The couple’s interview on CBS late on Sunday night sent shock waves around the world yesterday as the couple laid bare the extent of their rift with the Queen and other senior royals.

They accused an unnamed Royal Family member of racism, suggesting the relative had asked ‘how dark’ their baby would be; said they had been driven out of Britain, in part, by racism; and accused the Palace machinery of failing to support a ‘suicidal’ Meghan.

Harry revealed an astonishing rift with his father, saying his family had cut him off financially while suggesting the Queen had been badly advised and had cancelled a meeting scheduled at Sandringham.

Meghan also accused her sister-in-law Kate of making her cry; suggested senior royals plotted to ensure Archie would never have a title or adequate security; and said officials had failed to stand up for the couple against ‘racist’ commentary, while lying to protect other royals.

A senior Government minister and Boris Johnson ally, Lord [Zac] Goldsmith, echoed the mood of many in royal circles yesterday. Responding to the suggestion that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex had ‘loaded up a plane and dropped bomb after heavy bomb on Buckingham Palace’, he tweeted: ‘Not “Buckingham Palace” – Harry’s family. Harry is blowing up his family.’

As senior officials tried to work out how to respond:

• Miss Winfrey said Harry had made clear to her that the unnamed family member who raised ‘concerns’ about his son’s skin colour was not the Queen or the Duke of Edinburgh;
•  New clips from the interview included Harry alleging that the Queen had reneged on a promise to allow him to visit her Sandringham home to discuss his plans, leaving him devastated;
• Doubts emerged over Meghan’s claim that the couple had been ‘married’ secretly three days before their multi-million pound Windsor Castle wedding;
•  Boris Johnson refused to comment on allegations of racism against the Royal Family, but said he had the ‘highest admiration for the Queen’;
• Hillary Clinton accused the British media of ‘outrageous cruelty’ toward Meghan, while the White House praised the Duchess of Sussex’s ‘courage’;
•  Meghan’s father, Thomas Markle, was preparing to appear on British television today to address his criticism of her;
• Another clip showed Harry suggesting his brother William could not ever leave the royal ‘system’ and ‘control’ by the tabloid press

Buckingham Palace, which was not informed about the couple’s decision to do the interview before it was first announced last month, had been bracing itself for the worst. But aides could not have predicted how devastatingly brutal the couple’s interview – watched by 17million in the US alone but set to air last night to a global audience of many times more, including on ITV in the UK – would be.

The Mail has been told that royal staff stayed up until 3am to watch the interview via video link live from the US with a mounting sense of horror – and sadness.

As morning broke, crisis meetings were called involving senior officials as well as senior royals, in person and on the phone, as well via video call.

The Queen, at Windsor, spoke with her son Charles, who was at Clarence House, his London home, and grandson William, who has also moved back to the capital from Norfolk in preparation for his children to return to school.

Sources told the Mail that household staff, many of whom had supported the couple as best they could during an ‘extremely difficult and trying three years’, felt ‘angry and let down’ but were determined to put a brave face on the situation for the sake of the elderly monarch.

‘Staff are reeling. But there is [also] a strong sense of needing to retain a dignified silence and show kindness and compassion. There’s a lot people want to say but no one wins with a tit-for-tat battle,’ said one. ‘Bridges need to be built after all this is over, after all.’

Most damaging are the couple’s claims that not only were they unsupported by both family members and staff, but they also suffered as a result of an apparent racist agenda against them.

Meghan suggested that race was the heart of every decision made against them. But there was bemusement among royal insiders at her claims that senior royals had tried to prevent their son, Archie, from having a title – or security – because of blatant prejudice.

‘They didn’t want him to be a prince,’ she told Miss Winfrey.

Long-standing rules, laid down by George V, mean that the title of HRH passes only to the children of a sovereign and their grandchildren through the male line, meaning Archie will only be given a title when his grandfather, Prince Charles, accedes to the throne.

The Queen can issue letters patent to change that on an individual basis but aides for Harry and Meghan briefed journalists at the time of his birth that they were very happy for him to be styled ‘Master Archie’ because they wanted him to have the same kind of freedoms as the prince’s cousins, Zara and Peter Phillips. 

A source close to the Sussexes suggested yesterday the couple were so concerned about Archie’s security because of his mixed race heritage that they wanted him to become a prince so he would be afforded suitable security.

But insiders say there was never any doubt that the Queen’s great-grandson would be protected and although the Prince of Wales has made no secret of his desire to have a slimmed-down monarch, Harry and his family were always part of his plan.

There was no comment, however, on Meghan’s astonishing accusation that Kate had reduced her to tears ahead of the 2018 royal wedding over a bridesmaid dress fitting with her daughter, Princess Charlotte.

She even claimed her future sister-in-law ‘owned’ her mistake, apologised and bought her flowers, contrary to claims that it was she who had made Kate cry with her unrealistic demands.

‘She did what I would do if I hurt someone. Just take accountability for it,’ Meghan said.

The Duchess of Cambridge was yesterday seen driving, stony faced, near Kensington Palace as her office released a video of conducting a call to mark International Women’s Day by speaking to the youngest woman to row solo across an ocean.

The picture of strain was a stark contrast to a new image of Harry and Meghan, pregnant and cuddling Archie, in the garden of their home in California released by her friend, Misan Hariman, to also mark IWD.

The black and white portrait emerged on social media just hours after their interview – in which the couple revealed the second baby they were expecting was a girl – had aired.

A message read: ‘Welcome to the girldad club H!’

The Prime Minister refused yesterday to comment on the details of the Sussexes’ allegations – even when asked whether he believed members of the Royal Family might be racist.

But the White House backed the couple’s decision to speak out, a spokesman saying it took ‘courage’ for Meghan to open up about struggles with mental health problems.

And Labour called on the Palace to launch an investigation into the couple’s claims of racism.

Party leader Sir Keir Starmer said it was ‘really sad to see the family in turmoil like this’ and that the allegations made by the duchess must be taken seriously.

He added: ‘The issues that Meghan has raised of racism and mental health are really serious issues.

‘It is a reminder that too many people experience racism in 21st century Britain.

‘We have to take that very, very seriously.

‘Nobody, but nobody, should be prejudiced (against) because of the colour of their skin or because of their mental health issues.’

Labour education spokesman Kate Green went further, saying the duchess’s claims should be ‘fully investigated’ by the Palace.

But Tory MP Michael Fabricant accused Labour of trying to ‘politicise’ the row.

He told the Mail: ‘Labour are wrong to politicise this. They know full well that there will be inquiries going on.

‘They really do trying to be desperately insert themselves into the story to get attention.’

Mr Fabricant said: ‘Every family is dysfunctional one way or another. 

‘The holder of every high position will have personal little secrets they want hidden. We are all human.’

Just who ARE Harry and Meghan accusing of race slur? It’s not the Queen or Prince Philip… so who in the Royal Family is said by the couple to have queried the colour of their son’s skin?

By Rebecca English for the Daily Mail 

Meghan and Harry sparked an extraordinary guessing game yesterday after accusing an unnamed member of the Royal Family of racism.

In one of the most shocking sections of the Oprah Winfrey interview, the duchess claimed that Harry was asked by a close relative ‘how dark’ their unborn baby would be. 

She added that the unnamed Royal had raised ‘concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he’s born’.

The couple refused to identify the person concerned as it would be ‘too damaging to them’.

Speaking yesterday after the interview had aired in the US, Miss Winfrey revealed that Harry had asked her to make clear it wasn’t the Queen or the Duke of Edinburgh – leaving only a handful of people it could be, including the Prince of Wales and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, as well as the Duchess of Cornwall.

Palace insiders reacted with horror at the accusation last night, saying it was deeply unfair to throw around such a damaging accusation, potentially libelling a number of senior royals who are unable to defend themselves.

It was also pointed out that there was no context to the alleged comment, which might shed more light on why it was said.

And there appeared to be a contradiction about when it was said, with Meghan saying it was while she was pregnant, while Harry said it had happened before their wedding.

The bombshell claim came as the duchess was asked about why she believed the Royal Family were trying to stop her unborn son being made a prince and prevent him from receiving official security.

Miss Winfrey remarked that Meghan and Harry must have had their own ‘suspicions’, asking flatly: ‘Do you think it’s because of his race?’

Meghan said she would answer ‘honestly’, before going on to claim there were ‘concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he’s born’.

Reacting with exaggerated horror, Miss Winfrey asked who said that. Meghan sighed and said there were ‘several’ conversations about it with Harry.

‘About how dark your baby is going to be?’ asked Miss Winfrey.

Meghan replied: ‘Potentially, and what that would mean or look like.’ When pushed to reveal that person’s identity, Meghan refused. 

Significantly, she revealed that the question was asked during conversations ‘family had with him’.

When Harry joined the conversation, Miss Winfrey quickly took up the issue with him, saying Meghan had revealed there was a ‘conversation about Archie’s skin tone’. 

He nodded, clearly uncomfortable, admitted that it was ‘awkward’ and he was ‘a bit shocked’, but said he did not want to discuss it further.

Miss Winfrey said yesterday she had been ‘shocked’ at the alleged comment regarding Archie’s skin tone, but although she had tried to ask Harry for more information, both on and off-camera, he had refused to divest more.

However, he told her he wanted it made clear that the person concerned was ‘not his grandmother nor his grandfather’.

There was no comment from Buckingham Palace, but Charles’s biographer, Jonathan Dimbleby, told BBC Radio 4 he could not believe it would have been the heir to the throne.

‘He is someone whose professional personal life has been dedicated to bringing people together, not pulling them apart,’ he said. As predicted, race was a defining feature of the interview, threading through much of the interview.

Harry claimed that a ‘large part’ of the reason he and his family quit the UK was down to racism.

In an extra interview clip, posted on Twitter by US broadcaster CBS yesterday, the couple were asked by Miss Winfrey: ‘Did you leave the country because of racism?’

After a pause, Harry admitted it was a ‘large part’ of their reasoning, before launching an attack on the ‘bigoted’ press in the UK.

The duke said it would have made a ‘huge difference’ if the Royal Family had acknowledged the couple’s concerns.

‘There’s a lot of people that have seen it for what it was,’ he said. 

A lot of people. Like, it’s talked about across the world.

‘Yet, the very people that don’t want to see it or can’t see it choose not to see it.’

He said he has tried to ‘help them’ see what was happening to his wife and warned them that it was ‘not going to end well’.

Harry failed to reference his own indiscretions, including dressing up in a Nazi uniform and being filmed as a Sandhurst cadet using offensive and racist language to describe a colleague.

Instead, he obliquely referred to ‘doing my own learning’, blaming ‘the system of which I was brought up in’ for his ignorance.

He added: ‘One of the most telling parts and the saddest parts, I guess, was over 70 Members of Parliament… came out and called out the colonial undertones of articles and headlines written about Meghan.

‘Yet no one from my family ever said anything over those three years. That hurts.’

The duchess claimed the situation was made worse because royal press teams failed to come to their defence and correct inaccurate reports – as they had done for other family members.

A bonfire of piping hot pique served up by Queen of the sofa: JAN MOIR gives her verdict on the interview the whole world is talking about

By Jan Moir for the Daily Mail 

Whoever thought that royalty would one day deign to sit down with Meghan and Harry? Still, miracles do happen.

On a blameless spring day in California, the queen of the secular confessional dug out the orb of self-absorb along with the interceptor sceptre and sallied forth from her multimillion-dollar Montecito mansion to a friend’s multimillion-dollar Montecito mansion to interview Harry and Meghan, who arrived fresh from their multimillion-dollar Montecito mansion round the corner.

As Queen Oprah settled her guests among the lavender pots and lush greenery of this unnamed private estate, the pillared splendour told its own tale of the kind of sequestered luxury the Sussexes now call home. 

Yet in this sun-dappled paradise, all they wanted to talk about was paradise lost.

‘I’ve lost my father. I lost a baby. I nearly lost my name. I mean, there’s the loss of identity,’ said Meghan. 

This was odd, considering that she has always seemed to quietly revel in her royally bequeathed duchessdom, but let’s not quibble because she is Speaking Her Truth and just trying to live her authentic life.

She added that she hoped people would watch the show and realise that, despite everything, ‘life was still worth living’. Good to know!

Oprah’s task was a simple one: to grill the Duke and Duchess on the fractious circumstances behind Megxit. 

I say grill, but the chat show veteran didn’t have to rake over many coals to get to the main beefs.

Indeed, Oprah had barely put a match to their gas-fuelled umbrage before it all went up in a bonfire of piping hot pique. 

Kate made Meghan cry! The Royal Family was racist! No one taught Meghan how to sing the National Anthem and she had to Google it all by herself, Oh My God the suffering, nothing happy and glorious about that, let me tell you.

The entire country of Not-So-Great Britain was put in the dock and found wanting and, even worse, there were money worries when 36-year-old Harry revealed that his family had ‘literally cut me off financially’.

He was left to scrape together a living from only the millions his mother had left him. ‘Without that we would not have been able to do this,’ he said.

Indeed, throughout the broadcast there was so much complaining about who was and who wasn’t going to pay for Harry and Meghan’s security that I felt like offering to pay for it myself, if only to shut them up.

For the first half of the interview, it was just the two women; Oprah in a pink jumper with matching spectacles, sensible flat boots and magnificent hairdo.

Meghan was in Elegant Duchess high heels and black wrap dress, telling her version of events like someone reliving the horrors of the night while relaxing on a sunbed, cocktail to hand.

She was poised, purposeful and delivered a strong performance full of dramatic pauses, deep breaths, Streep-like sideways glances and the occasional trembling lower lip. 

When Harry appeared in the second half, it was interesting that Meghan took on a more supplicant role, gazing at her husband in adoration as he talked emotionally of the ongoing estrangement from his father and his brother.

Yet despite this, she was still in charge; reassuring him, rubbing his arm, nodding in agreement even as the chasm peeled open ever wider between the two families.

Here, too, the nature of their relationship seemed clear; he is the Rodney to her Del Boy, she is the princess to his pea. 

‘No one in my family ever said anything over those three years. And that hurts,’ Harry said, of perceived slights to his wife. 

Yet amid the 50 shades of green in this far-flung Garden of Eden they still had each other and their fingers were entwined like bindweed.

The original interview was three hours and 20 minutes long, edited down to 85 minutes of pure peeve — or ‘setting the record straight’, as Oprah insisted. 

In America it was shown between adverts for loo paper, pistachio nuts, almond milk and car insurance.

There was a product that promised to get rid of sudden overnight wrinkles and I immediately thought of the Queen, who deserves so much more than this life–shortening opera courtesy of her blunderbuss grandson, this farrago of miff and huff.

The Sussexes did take pains to compliment HM, who gave Meghan some pearls, once shared a knee blanket and was kind. 

She was practically the only soul who emerged with a shred of dignity from the entire programme.

Even still, the show remained a royal spectacle — it was right up there with Prince Edward’s It’s A Knockout fiasco and Prince Andrew’s ceremonial flaying by the BBC’s Emily Maitlis. 

‘What?’ Oprah would cry, saucer-eyed, as the couple dropped another killer zinger and detailed their belief that everyone was out to get them, almost from the start.

As the minutes ticked by, it became obvious that the Sussexes’ revelations were designed to cause maximum damage to the Royal Family.

From the outset, the bomb-bay doors were open wide on this transatlantic revenge flight, the missiles falling like the raindrops Harry recently urged us all to become.

As Oprah nodded in empathy to their litany of woes, Sussex scold followed Sussex grievance followed terrible Sussex allegations about remarks made over their son Archie.

On the screen — but not off it, according to Oprah —the Sussexes stopped short of actually accusing anyone of anything, which was perhaps the worst crime of all. 

For it leaves newspapers, internet chatrooms, social media and uninformed speculation — everything in the world that they profess to hate — to do the dirty work for them. 

Look at them, pretending to hide under the petticoats of discretion in such a disingenuous fashion. 

What a pair of dangerous cowards they are.

In the history of chat shows, has anyone ever used the forum for a more brutal and sustained attack? 

Harry and Meghan clearly have suffered difficulty and pain — how we all wish things had been different on all sides — but was this carpet-bombing really necessary?

As one would expect from a friend, neighbour and wedding guest, Oprah did not probe or question too closely when the couple became vague on details, as they often did. 

They, them, the institution, The Firm? Who were they talking about?

Who said what? How and when? Clarification came there none, as Oprah moved swiftly on to the next unsubstantiated allegation.

Interestingly, there was very little discussion of Thomas Markle — a key figure in the Sussex drama — which makes one suspect that questions about him were discouraged. 

As, indeed, was anything that might have shown the couple in a bad light.

So instead we were treated to some cockle-warming footage of the family playing with Archie on a nearby beach and a rather hilarious interlude at the couple’s own home. 

There, Oprah, Harry and Meghan donned wellies and were filmed chatting in a chicken coop for hens that the couple have recently rescued from a factory farm.

She’s always wanted chickens,’ said Harry.

‘Well, you know, I just love rescuing,’ said Meghan, who perhaps didn’t mean her husband. Or maybe she did, who knows?

So in the end what did we learn? The couple showered lots of calculated praise on the Queen but said nothing about Prince Philip. 

We learnt that Prince Charles stopped taking his son’s calls, Harry is not on speakers with William and so far, so Crown.

Poor old Kate was thrown under the bus and kicked to the kerb by her sister-in-law — and Oprah just sat there and let it all happen.

‘I forgive her,’ said Meghan, after claiming that the Duchess of Cambridge made her cry but refusing to say why.

She sounded more like a Mean Girl than perhaps she intended but we are far from the shallows now, out into the uncharted waters from which there is little hope of a safe return to harbour.

At the root of everything, if you ask me, is a husband who failed to grasp the bigger picture and a wife who confused being royal with being famous — and still can’t tell the difference, even now.

LINDSAY NICHOLSON: In allowing the Harry and Meghan situation to come to this, the Royals have let an impressive woman slip through their fingers

By Lindsay Nicholson for the Daily Mail

Usually it’s not difficult to spot a Royal bride on a visit to an urban community centre.

She might not be wearing a tiara, but there could well be a hat and clutch, even gloves, and flunkies whose job it is to make sure only a favoured few get close to the woman who would soon be referred to as Her Royal Highness.

But this wasn’t happening when I arrived at the Al-Manaar mosque in West London one morning in spring 2018. To be sure, there were a couple of dark-suited men with earpieces, suggesting that one of the most talked-about women in the Western world had got there ahead of me.

But there was no formality, no protocol, certainly no hierarchy.

In a room of women of all ages and sizes, representing 15 different cultural heritages, speaking a dozen languages, all working to feed the hundreds made homeless after the Grenfell fire, it took me a while to find the Royal bride.

Until, that is, I spotted a woman wearing jeans, her sleeves rolled up, elbow-deep in scrubbing pans at the sink. There was no standing on ceremony and definitely nothing to indicate that in a few days’ time this particular washer-upper would discard her apron and walk down the aisle of St George’s Chapel, Windsor, to marry Prince Harry. There was laughter, jokes and kissing instead of handshakes.

Three years on, as I watch the international furore grow around the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, I can only wonder why no-one seems to see the Meghan that I, and the women of the community kitchen, got to know that day.

I wonder where that valuable asset to the Royal family, who seemed to fit in so effortlessly, whose future seemed so bright and assured, has gone. I can’t believe it has come to this . . .

Meghan was still living in Canada in 2017 when the devastating fire ripped through the London Tower block killing 72, making it the worst peacetime disaster in the capital since the World War II.

But as soon as she moved to London to be with Prince Harry, realising Grenfell was on her doorstep at Kensington Palace, she began making secret visits, in particular helping the women of the nearby mosque who had begun cooking meals to feed the displaced.

The kitchen was only open on Tuesdays and Thursdays and when she asked why, she discovered that the problem was funding.

It was her idea to raise the money to expand the kitchen by collecting the family recipes of the women into a cookbook, on which I, as former editor of Good Housekeeping, was happy to help out.

The food on offer was extraordinary, world-class cuisine from around the world — all coming out of this ramshackle kitchen.

Meghan thought so too and we collaborated on what became Together: Our Community Cookbook published in September of that year.

It meant Meghan was popping along to the mosque, in an unmarked car, right up until a couple of days before the wedding and was back again and helping with the book edits not long after.

Even with her new title, a Royal Highness now, there was no difference to the person we had come to know. She even brought with her food she had made in the kitchens at the Palace to share at lunch.

Chatting once everyone had been fed, I remember asking Meghan if she and Harry had managed to fit in a honeymoon. She just gave me that cheeky smile that she uses when she doesn’t want to answer, and changed the subject.

It was deftly done, more in common with how an accomplished celebrity handles things. No offence was taken. But if she set boundaries with me — a journalist, after all — there was no hint of frostiness with the women in the kitchen, allowing herself to be the butt of their jokes, having her cooking skills criticised and enjoying their laughter.

Above all, though, I think they recognised her as a fellow grafter, someone who did the work behind the scenes, not just when there were cameras around.

If she was privately suffering at this stage, as she has suggested in interview, there was no sign of it. Of course, one never knows what goes on behind a smile, but the person I saw that day was impressive.

The star quality of Diana, but at the same time relatable and accomplished. It’s the Royal family’s loss that she has slipped through its fingers, never to return.

But there are many people in this country who don’t really feel the Royal Family has much to say for itself. Perhaps if things had been handled a little better, Meghan could have been the bridge between the disaffected and the traditionalists.

Who knows? But what is certain is that there is a lot to be admired about a Duchess in jeans doing the washing up. I just wish she’d stayed longer, to do more.