An arrangement of U.K. daily newspapers, in Brighton, on March 8, 2021.GLYN KIRK/AFP/Getty Images
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s revelations about life inside the Royal Family have caused a furor in Britain and led to calls for an investigation into racism at Buckingham Palace.
During their televised interview with Oprah Winfrey on Sunday, Ms. Markle talked about having suicidal thoughts and Harry said an unnamed relative expressed concern about how dark their baby’s skin would be. He later clarified that the comments had not come from the Queen or her husband, Prince Philip.
The Royal Family has “this mentality of: ‘This is just how it is. This is how it’s meant to be. You can’t change it,’ " Harry said. “What was different for me was the race element, because now it wasn’t just about her, but it is about what she represents.”
Meghan, the wife of Prince Harry, accused the Royal Family of raising concerns about how dark their son's skin might be and pushing her to the brink of suicide, in a tell-all television interview that will send shockwaves through the monarchy.
Reuters
There has been little doubt that Ms. Markle, 39, struggled with life in the Royal Family ever since her marriage to Harry in 2018. The couple gave up their royal roles last year in a bid for greater independence and moved to California with their year-old son, Archie. They plan to launch a charitable foundation and they’ve signed deals with Netflix and Spotify.
However, the interview proved far more revealing than many royal watchers expected and the allegations raised by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have been met with fierce condemnation – of the Royal Family and Ms. Markle.
“There’s never any excuse in any circumstances for racism and I think it is important that action is taken to investigate what are really shocking allegations,” said Kate Green, a senior Labour member of Parliament. Ms. Green told Sky TV that she expected Ms. Markle’s comments “to be treated by the palace with the upmost seriousness and fully investigated.”
The Minister for Children, Vicky Ford, told the BBC that while she hadn’t seen the full interview, the allegations of racism were unacceptable. “There is absolutely no place for racism in our society and we all need to work to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Prime Minister Boris Johnson wouldn’t comment on the allegations or the interview. “When it comes to matters to do with the Royal Family, the right thing for prime ministers to say is nothing, and nothing is the thing that I propose to say today about that particular matter,” Mr. Johnson said during a news conference on the COVID-19 pandemic.
Buckingham Palace has also not responded and the Royal Family’s Twitter feed spent Monday focused on Commonwealth Day. However, in what many saw as a pre-emptive strike, royal officials said last week that they planned to examine allegations that Ms. Markle had bullied staff. In a statement at the time, the palace said it “does not and will not tolerate bullying or harassment.” Ms. Markle’s spokesman dismissed the probe as the “latest attack on her character.”
The British media have been divided on the interview, with much of the tabloid press siding with the Royal Family. The Duke and Duchess have taken a hostile approach to the British press and both have recently scored legal victories against the owner of the Mail on Sunday. During the interview, Harry, 36, also said that racism was a factor in their decision to leave England and that the British press was bigoted.
On Monday, the Daily Express chastised Ms. Markle for a “self-serving chat with Oprah” while television host Piers Morgan, a former Daily Mirror editor, accused Ms. Markle of labelling the Royal Family “a bunch of white supremacists.”
“Let’s be clear,” Mr. Morgan said Monday on Good Morning Britain. “Prince Harry and his wife just spent two hours trashing everything the Queen stands for and has worked so hard to maintain, whilst pretending to support her. And they did it while her 99-year-old husband [Prince Philip] is seriously ill in hospital. It’s contemptible.”
Other royal followers said the allegations have damaged the Royal Family and raised questions about the relevance of the monarchy for young people throughout the Commonwealth.
“We saw a racial clash. We saw a clash across the generations. All much more powerful than I expected,” royal historian Robert Lacey said in an interview. “The attack on the very roots and functioning of the system won’t go away and raises very important issues.”
Mark Borkowski, a London-based public-relations consultant, said the interview highlighted just how out of touch the Royal Family is with the modern world.
“What it projected was anachronistic values, racism, bullying, mental-health issues, nothing has changed since Diana, and a way of life that actually led a woman to consider suicide,” Mr. Borkowski said. “That isn’t healthy in a time when businesses, organizations, institutions across the world are rethinking how they operate.”
He expected the Royal Family will turn to the Duke of Cambridge, Harry’s brother and the second-in-line to the throne, to try to rehabilitate the royal image. But that won’t be easy.
“Not only is the royal brand tarnished but you have a woke, dynamic duo based in California, touched by the royal fairy dust, that has got deals with some of the biggest tech giants in the world. So you’ve got a competing brand,” he said.
Many others have come to the defence of the monarchy and insisted that the Royal Family did all it could to welcome Ms. Markle.
“I don’t think there’s a strand of racism within the royal household at all,” Charles Anson, the Queen’s former press secretary, told the BBC.
Mr. Anson added that whatever racism Ms. Markle encountered came from social media and that the Royal Household had services to help staff suffering from mental-health issues. However, he acknowledged that Ms. Markle’s comments raised “some issues that need to be dealt with within the family context.”
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