{"id":196973,"date":"2021-03-08T19:07:05","date_gmt":"2021-03-08T16:07:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/meghan-and-harrys-interview-a-royals-expert-on-what-we-did-and-didnt-learn\/"},"modified":"2021-03-08T19:07:05","modified_gmt":"2021-03-08T16:07:05","slug":"meghan-and-harrys-interview-a-royals-expert-on-what-we-did-and-didnt-learn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/meghan-and-harrys-interview-a-royals-expert-on-what-we-did-and-didnt-learn\/","title":{"rendered":"#Meghan and Harry’s interview: A royals expert on what we did and didn’t learn"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Meghan and Harry’s interview: A royals expert on what we did and didn’t learn<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n There are two successful strategies for entertainment teasers and trailers: either put your best clips and quotes in them, in hope of sucking in viewers to an ultimately boring showbiz event, or say little so as to tantalize viewers into being witnesses to something even more breathtaking. The two-hour Oprah Winfrey interview of Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and her husband, Prince Harry, was most definitely the latter.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On Sunday night, millions heard the couple tell their side of a saga that has generated headlines and alerts for the past four years. \u201cLife is about storytelling\u2014about the stories we tell ourselves, the stories we are told and the stories we buy into,\u201d Meghan said at the end of that dramatic interview. She and her husband raised so many issues and controversies, including accusations of royal racism and wanton cruelty, that it will take weeks to process all of them.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There were heartbreaking revelations, including that Meghan had suicidal ideations when pregnant with Archie. \u201cI just didn\u2019t want to be alive anymore. And that\u2019s a very clear, and real and frightening constant thought,\u201d she revealed. She told her husband just <\/span>before they were to go to a glittering event at Royal Albert Hall in 2019<\/span><\/a>. Though Harry thought she should stay home, Meghan said \u201cI can\u2019t be left alone.\u201d They went, tightly holding each other\u2019s hands during the event, as she wept whenever the lights went down and she had privacy in the royal box.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Meghan says her pleas for help were ignored. \u201cI went to the institution [described as \u201cone of the most senior people\u201d] and I said, \u2018I need to go somewhere to get help,\u2019 that I\u2019ve never felt like this before and I need to go somewhere, and I was told I couldn\u2019t, that it wouldn\u2019t be good for the institution.\u201d She said she went to palace human resources but was told that its aid was reserved for employees, not royals like her. Harry said, \u201cI had no idea what to do. I wasn\u2019t prepared for that. I went to a very dark place as well,\u201d though he didn\u2019t tell his own family of Meghan\u2019s mental health problems, saying, \u201cI guess I was ashamed of admitting it to them. I don\u2019t know whether they\u2019ve had the same feelings or thoughts. I have no idea. It\u2019s a very trapp<\/a>ing environment they are stuck in.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Then there was their bombshell discussion of racism of an unnamed royal. Meghan, the first woman of colour to marry a senior royal, says that while pregnant with Archie, there were \u201cconcerns and conversations about how dark his [Archie\u2019s] skin would be.\u201d She says it was \u201cseveral conversations\u201d though she won\u2019t say that person\u2019s name: \u201cI think that would be very damaging to them,\u201d saying the racist comments were \u201crelayed to me from Harry; those were conversations that the family had with him,\u201d seeming to suggest it was several members. Harry says, \u201cThat conversation I am never going to share,\u201d before going on to say, \u201cBut at the time it was awkward; I was a bit shocked.\u201d He also puts the timing much earlier, saying it was at the very beginning of their relationship when she was still acting and living in Toronto.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The racism allegation is enormously damaging to the royal family, which eight hours before had taken part in the annual multicultural celebration of Commonwealth Day, though this year it\u2019s not in-person but on the BBC. (On Monday morning, Oprah Winfrey said that while she doesn\u2019t know the name of the royal, Harry told her that his grandparents, the Queen and Prince Philip, were not \u201cpart of those conversations.\u201d)<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Harry said they stepped back from their senior roles as full-time royals because of a \u201clack of support and a lack of understanding,\u201d saying further, \u201cWe were desperate. I went to all the places that I thought I should go to, we both did, separately, together.\u201d They got no help, they say.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Furthermore, \u201cwhat is different to me was the race element,\u201d Harry explains. \u201cBecause it wasn\u2019t just about her but it was about what she represents and therefore it wasn\u2019t just affecting my wife but it was affecting so many other people as well. And that was the trigger for me to engage in those conversations with senior palace staff and with my family, to say, \u2018This is not going to end well.\u2019\u201d He said that although there were \u201cmany opportunities for my family to show some public support\u201d for him and his wife as they dealt with an onslaught of racism from social media<\/a>, the press and institutions, \u201cNo one from my family ever said anything over those three years. That hurts.\u201d In a clip that aired on CBS on Monday, Harry <\/span>says racism played a \u201clarge part\u201d in their decision to leave Britain<\/span><\/a>, also stating that he was warned that the United Kingdom was bigoted and the press would destroy him.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

During the broadcast, he said that he thinks his family is \u201ccontrolled by fear,\u201d \u201cscared\u2026of the tabloids turning on them,\u201d so much so that if they \u201care willing to wine, dine and give full access to these reporters, then you will get better press.\u201d And furthermore, he believes \u201cMy father and my brother, they are trapped\u201d within the royal system, saying, \u201cThey don\u2019t get to leave and I have huge compassion for that.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For the royal family, its staff and advisers, the interview was an unmitigated disaster, as they face multiple accusations of being racist, callous, uncaring and downright cruel. \u201cHow do you feel about the palace hearing you speak your truth today?\u201d <\/span>asked Winfrey<\/span><\/a>. \u201cI don\u2019t know how they could expect that after all of this time we would still just be silent if there\u2019s an active role that the Firm is playing in perpetuating falsehoods about us and if that comes with risk of losing things, there\u2019s a lot that\u2019s been lost already,\u201d responded Meghan.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Sussex interview by Oprah Winfrey was aimed squarely at the American market, where the couple is focusing their new ventures (including deals with Netflix and Spotify) and where the royal family is seen as entertainment.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

American viewers can\u2019t be expected to understand the institution of the monarchy, whether \u201cpalace\u201d or \u201cthey\u201d or \u201cinstitution\u201d refers to the family itself or their staff, let alone the difference between working royals (of which there are around a dozen) and the members of the Queen\u2019s extended family, who are private citizens who earn their own livings.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For many Americans, the interview reinforces their view of Meghan as a woman forced to flee <\/span>a racist, hidebound royal family<\/span><\/a>; that the monarchy sought to destroy her hopes to reform and rejuvenate the House of Windsor; and that the royal opposition was aided by tabloid media that continues its anti-Meghan campaign to this day.\u00a0 As the interview drove to its finale, talk of abolishing royal privileges, the monarchy, the Commonwealth, swirled on social media. As <\/span>Nate Cohn, a writer for the <\/span>New York Times<\/span><\/i>, tweeted<\/span><\/a>: \u201cCanada: we\u2019re always here. When you\u2019re ready.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For two hours, Harry and Meghan effectively lobbed grenade after grenade over the gilded fences of Buckingham Palace, Clarence House and Kensington Palace. Indeed, the only person to escape unscathed was the Queen. Meghan said it was Kate who drove her to tears in the lead-up to her 2018 wedding, not the other way around, as the British media reported. Whatever Kate said about bridesmaid dresses, \u201c<\/span>made me cry and it really hurt my feelings,\u201d Meghan recounted, though \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s fair to her to get into the details. She\u2019s apologized and I forgave her.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In addition to not communicating with his brother, Prince William, Harry also revealed that his father stopped talking to him in the midst of their discussions about stepping back from royal duties. Harry said that when they did decamp permanently for Canada, and shortly afterward, for the United States, \u201cmy family literally cut me off financially\u2026in the first quarter of 2020\u201d leaving him and Meghan to scramble to put together financial deals \u201cto afford security for us.\u201d (Though, he does say that he\u2019s got his inheritance from his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales. That is estimated to be in the tens of millions of pounds.)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

At times, Oprah\u2019s trademark interviewing style, perfected over the decades to appear non-threatening while she extracts jaw-dropping revelations, meant that gaps in their story went either unanswered or unchallenged. While Meghan and Harry\u2019s recounting of the agony of dealing with her suicidal thoughts is obviously still raw, Oprah didn\u2019t follow up to ask whether Harry, who had years of therapy to deal with his mother\u2019s death and who has championed mental health issues, had called his own therapist or doctor to get help. Or if he\u2019d asked his brother, who has also been open with his mental struggles. Or his father, who went through more than a decade of therapy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As I watched the Sussexes recount their experiences during the interview, one thought kept cycling through my mind: Why hadn\u2019t Prince Harry clearly explained to Meghan what a life of royal duty involved when he proposed in 2017? Or gotten someone else to explain the strictures of royal life and its grinding protocol and hierarchy? They both seemed woefully unprepared for their new royal roles and the fairytale turned into a nightmare for both of them.<\/span>\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

The overall impression is that there were two sets of standards: a restricted, unfair and even dangerous one for Harry and Meghan, and another kinder, more generous one for other royals.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While the interview is very laudatory of Harry and Meghan\u2014after all, this is <\/span>their <\/span><\/i>big chance to tell their story\u2014I\u2019m too much of a fact-checker not to point out a few inconsistencies<\/span> with their narrative, and a<\/span> few seeming inaccuracies.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In this interview, the pronouns \u201cThey\u201d and \u201cYou\u201d do heavy lifting, usually with no clarity as to whether Harry and\/or Meghan were referring to the royal family itself (slang: the Firm), their staff and courtiers, or an amorphous tradition-bound \u201cinstitution.\u201d \u201cThey didn\u2019t want to do that\u201d; \u201cIt was a decision they felt was appropriate\u201d; \u201cThey said, \u201cThat\u2019s just not possible.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

At one point, Harry said, their taxpayer-funded police protection was suddenly removed: \u201cTheir justification was a change of status. Was there a change of risk or threats? No, but we weren\u2019t working members of the royal family.\u201d Left unsaid is why British taxpayers would fund U.K. police officers to indefinitely protect a now-private person living in Canada and later the United States (he says nothing of the cost of the extensive RCMP protection while they lived on Vancouver Island). As Meghan said, the royal family is a business; people\u2019s benefits usually don\u2019t continue after they leave a job, especially when they have sizable inheritances and trusts given to them by said family.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Some errors were just slips of the tongue: When Meghan revealed that the Archbishop of Canterbury had \u201cmarried\u201d her and Harry in a private ceremony three days before the huge religious service at Windsor Castle, <\/span>it was later clarified <\/span><\/a>as a \u201cprivate exchange of vows\u201d rather than a legal ceremony.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Sometimes, I desperately wanted Oprah Winfrey to ask just one more follow-up to pin down exactly who was being referenced and to give an example. When talking of the \u201cKate crying\u201d story, Meghan said, \u201cThey would go on the record and negate the most ridiculous story for anyone\u2026things that are super artificial and inconsequential, but the narrative about making Kate cry was a real character assassination and they knew it wasn\u2019t true. And I felt, \u2018If they aren\u2019t going to kill things like that, what are they going to do?\u2019\u201d At another time, Meghan cryptically says she came to understand \u201cnot only was I not being protected but that they were willing to lie to protect other members of the family but they weren\u2019t willing to tell the truth to protect me and my husband.\u201d I\u2019m curious to know the backstories to these comments.<\/span><\/p>\n

At times I wanted to know who exactly was providing the couple with their information about royal life. For instance, Meghan references the \u201cnon-senior\u201d working roles that they wanted to occupy, saying, \u201cI can think of so many right now who are all their royal highnesses, prince or princess, duke or duchess, who earn a living, live on palace grounds, and support the Queen, if and when called upon.\u201d But there are no non-senior working royals who have careers and also take on official duties on behalf of the Queen. She seems to be referring to princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, who have careers and who pay commercial rents to live in private accommodations at royal palaces while occasionally appearing at a Buckingham Palace tea party or accompanying the Queen to Ascot, though they aren\u2019t considered working royals.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Then there is the remarkably long, rather baffling section in which Meghan says that her son was refused the title of \u201cprince\u201d that was his by birth. She was pregnant \u201cwhen they were saying they didn\u2019t want him to be a prince or princess\u2026which would be different from protocol,\u201d she explained, going on to say, \u201cThe idea of the first member of colour in this family not being titled in the same way that other grandchildren would be\u201d confused her. She claims that, under the title-naming convention established by King George V, \u201cit\u2019s not their right to take it away\u2026while I was pregnant they said they wanted to change the convention. For Archie. Why?\u201d She goes on to say, without naming names within the institution,<\/span> that the lack of title is one reason why they didn\u2019t release the traditional hospital doorstop image of their new baby: \u201cCan you just tell them the truth? Can you say to the world, \u2018You\u2019re not giving him a title and we want to keep him safe and that if he\u2019s not a prince, that\u2019s not part of the tradition. Just tell people and then they will understand.\u2019 But they didn\u2019t want to do that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

At that point in the interview, I wrote, \u201cWUUUUUT????\u201d in my notes. For that\u2019s not what the convention actually says. And this is a topic Harry should know well, as would any member of his family, household or anyone who did a quick Google search. It is <\/span>discussed ad nauseum at every wedding and royal birth<\/span>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Here is my well-worn precis: In 1917, <\/span>George V issued a royal proclamation dropping German titles for his family and outlining<\/span> exactly who gets <\/span>British royal titles and style: the titles \u201cprince\u201d and \u201cprincess\u201d as well as the styles \u201cRoyal Highness\u201d would be reserved for children of the monarch, children of the sons of a monarch and, finally, the eldest son of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales. That system worked until 2012, when Prince William and Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, announced they were expecting their first child. With changes to the rights of succession, that baby\u2014whether male or female\u2014would automatically be the future monarch. Yet, if the child was a girl, she wouldn\u2019t get a royal title, as she wasn\u2019t the \u201celdest living son of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales,\u201d as dictated by the existing rules. Queen Elizabeth II solved the problem by issuing a new Letters Patent on the <\/span>last day of 2012<\/span><\/a> that bestowed royal titles and styles to all of William and Kate\u2019s children. Thus arrived HRH Prince George in 2013, HRH Princess Charlotte in 2015 and HRH Prince Louis in 2018. But that tweak didn\u2019t extend beyond the direct line of succession to any future children of Harry.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So the rule wasn\u2019t changed for Archie; rather, Harry\u2019s granny didn\u2019t issue a new Letters Patent to bestow the title of \u201cprince\u201d on her great-grandson. Archie<\/span> is technically Earl of Dumbarton and <\/span>automatically becomes a prince <\/span>when his grandfather, Charles, becomes king. He was going to keep falling down the line of succession as he grew up as a private member of the royal family. (Prince Edward\u2019s young children Louise and James, who are technically a princess and prince, don\u2019t use those titles as they aren\u2019t going to be working royals.)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In addition, Meghan said that by changing the rules to deny Archie the title of \u201cprince\u201d he also \u201cwasn\u2019t going to receive security,\u201d in other words, the lack of title means a lack of protection. \u201cI heard a lot of it through Harry and other parts of it through conversations with family members. It was a decision they felt was appropriate.\u201d Yet, again, that\u2019s not exactly correct. The Queen\u2019s own adult granddaughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, have titles but no taxpayer-funded police protection as they aren\u2019t working royals. As well, over the years, the qualifications for police protection have increased to the point that some junior working royals only get protection while at public events, in addition to their residences, which are on royal estates for that very reason. And children of other working royals are protected by extension through the protection given to their parents.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In January 2020, Harry\u2019s beloved granny announced the separation agreement involving Harry and Meghan. While<\/span> the Queen stated<\/span><\/a>, \u201cI recognise the challenges they have experienced as a result of intense scrutiny over the last two years and support their wish for a more independent life,\u201d that acceptance that the couple was free to earn their own way through commercial endorsements and deals, came with one big promise from the young couple: \u201cWhile they can no longer formally represent The Queen, the Sussexes have made clear that everything they do will continue to uphold the values of Her Majesty.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Those values are duty and loyalty and sacrifice. Now, as the world absorbs the interview Meghan and Harry just gave, the question is asked: did they keep their promise <\/span>to the monarchy, or irretrievably damage it? Or did they, somehow, spectacularly, do both?<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n