Oprah Winfrey has a few words of clarification from Prince Harry about their explosive interview that aired Sunday night.
The update came in response to what CBS’ Gayle King described as “a big guessing game all around the world — who was it, who was it, who was it?” Who was the family member who was concerned about the skin color of Harry and Meghan’s son, Archie, given that Meghan is mixed race?
“I thought it was very touching that Harry is still choosing to protect the identity of whoever that was,” King said on “CBS This Morning.”
Winfrey answered, “He did not share the identity with me, but he wanted to make sure that I knew, and if I had an opportunity to share it, that it was not his grandmother nor his grandfather [who] were a part of those conversations.”
She restated, to be quite clear: “Neither his grandmother nor grandfather were a part of those conversations.” But, although he excluded the queen and Prince Philip, she added, Harry didn’t tell her who it was.
In the sit-down, which scored major ratings for CBS, Harry and Meghan spoke about how a lack of support from the royal family combined with relentless attacks by the British tabloid press brought them to a decision to step away from their royal roles. They noted in particular a lack of support for Meghan as a woman of color in an overwhelmingly white institution.
Archie, unlike his first cousins, does not have an HRH title — i.e., he’s not a prince. Meghan revealed that during discussions about the title their child might receive, some members of the family had “concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he’s born.”
When asked for more details, Meghan said there were “several conversations” with Harry about “what that would mean and what that would look like.” The concern that Archie might be, as Winfrey said, “too brown” was deemed a valid assumption.
Meghan, like Harry, refused to identify the family member, saying, “I think that would be very damaging to them.”
So Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip are off the hook, but it appears the guessing game can continue.
The interview can be seen in its entirety — which Winfrey said was an hour and 25 minutes, edited down from a three hour, 20-minute conversation — at CBS.com.
