Buckingham Palace officials said the British royal family was saddened by revelations shared over the weekend by Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, and her husband, Prince Harry, in a tell-all interview with Oprah Winfrey.
“The issues raised, particularly that of race, are concerning,” Buckingham Palace officials said Tuesday. “While some recollections may vary, they are taken very seriously and will be addressed by the family privately.”
Meghan, who is biracial, told Winfrey that while she was pregnant with the couple’s first child, Archie, unidentified royal family members raised “concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be” with Harry.
“I was a bit shocked,” Harry said, declining to share more details on the conversation. He later told Winfrey that it was not Queen Elizabeth II or his grandfather, Prince Philip, who made the comments.
BREAKING: Statement from Buckingham Palace following Harry and Meghan’s interview with Oprah pic.twitter.com/U05xEX2aka
— Lizzie Robinson (@LizzieITV) March 9, 2021
During the wide-ranging interview, which aired in the U.S. on Sunday and in the U.K. on Monday, the couple spoke about their experiences with racism, feeling “trapped” in their roles and their rejected attempts to reach out for help after the intense public scrutiny led Meghan to contemplate suicide while pregnant with Archie.
“The whole family is saddened to learn the full extent of how challenging the last few years have been for Harry and Meghan,” Buckingham Palace officials said in the statement released Tuesday. “Harry, Meghan and Archie will always be much loved family members.”
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Meghan told Winfrey that she went to officials with Buckingham Palace’s human resources department after admitting to Harry that she “just didn’t want to be alive anymore.”
“I went to human resources, and I said, ‘I just really, I need help,’ because in my old job there was a union, and they would protect me,” the former actress said. “And I remember this conversation like it was yesterday because they said, ‘My heart goes out to you because I see how bad it is, but there’s nothing we can do to protect you, because you’re not a paid employee of the institution.’”
Meghan, formerly known as Meghan Markle, and Harry wed in May 2018 at Windsor Castle. They have since moved to Montecito, a seaside community in California’s Santa Barbara County, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Cox Media Group
