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Royal Family

Oprah interview: Meghan 'didn't want to be alive anymore' due to royal hostility

Meghan Markle said a member of the Royal Family had concerns about how “dark” her son Archie’s skin would be.

IN A BOMBSHELL interview Prince Harry and Meghan Markle accused an unnamed royal of racism, suggesting the family were jealous of Meghan and revealing how she contemplated taking her own life while pregnant.

Meghan and Harry hit out at the institution and members of the royal family in a series of astonishing admissions during their candid Oprah Winfrey interview.

Appearing vulnerable at times, the duchess revealed that working for The Firm – as the royal family is sometimes known – ultimately left her feeling that ending her life was an option, and how she had not been protected by the monarchy.

Asked explicitly by Winfrey if she was thinking of self-harm and having suicidal thoughts at some stage, Meghan replied: “Yes. This was very, very clear.

Very clear and very scary. I didn’t know who to turn to in that.

A member of the royal family – who both Harry and Meghan refused to identify – was worried about how dark their son Archie’s skin tone might be before he was born.

A stunned Winfrey asked: “What? Who is having that conversation?”

Meghan paused and said there were “several conversations” with Harry about Archie’s skin tone, and “what that would mean or look like”.

Asked whether there were concerns that her child would be “too brown” and that would be a problem, Meghan said: “If that is the assumption you are making, that is a pretty safe one.”

Pushed by Winfrey on who had those conversations, Meghan refused to say, adding: “I think that would be very damaging to them.”

Harry refused to give further details, adding: “That conversion, I am never going to share. At the time it was awkward, I was a bit shocked.”

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Harry suggested his family were jealous of Meghan’s popularity with the public – just as the appeal of his mother Diana, Princess of Wales had reportedly been seen as a threat.

And he revealed how he has become estranged from his father the Prince of Wales, saying: “I feel really let down”, but added he would make it one of his priorities “to try and heal that relationship”.

Describing how she had been misrepresented in the press, Meghan said Prince William’s wife Kate Middleton had made her cry ahead of her wedding – the opposite of reports circulating ahead of the Sussexes’ nuptials that Meghan left Kate in tears at her daughter Charlotte’s bridesmaid dress fitting.

In a lighter moment, the couple who announced in February they were expecting their second child said they are due to have a baby girl in the summer.

Life behind palace doors has not been exposed to this degree since the days of the “War of the Waleses”, when the turmoil of Charles and Diana’s disintegrating marriage was laid bare in the 1990s.

Need help? Support is available:

  • Aware – 1800 80 48 48 (depression, anxiety)
  • Samaritans – 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.ie
  • Pieta House – 1800 247 247 or email mary@pieta.ie (suicide, self-harm)
  • Teen-Line Ireland – 1800 833 634 (for ages 13 to 18)
  • Childline – 1800 66 66 66 (for under 18s)
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