Meghan and Prince Harry’s Oprah interview: ‘I just didn’t want to be alive anymore’
The Duchess of Sussex opened up about the depths of her mental health battle to Oprah, as Prince Harry revealed their tour of Australia led to soured relationships.
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Meghan Markle has revealed she contemplated suicide and was banned from seeking help by “the institution” of the Royal Family.
The Duchess of Sussex, 39, said she was at “breaking point” and had been cautious about telling Harry, 36, because of the loss he had already suffered with the death of his mother, Princess Diana.
“I just didn’t see a solution. I would sit up at night and I was like I don’t understand how all this was being churned out,” she said.
“I knew that if I didn’t say it that I would do it,” she said, of the depths of her mental struggles.
“And I just didn’t want to be alive any more and that was a very clear and real and frightening, constant thought.
“And I remember how he just cradled me and I was … I went to the institution and I said that I needed to go somewhere to get help.
“I said I have never felt this way before and I need to go somewhere and I was told that I couldn’t, that it wouldn’t be good for the institution.”
She said she had been comforted during her lowest points by one of Princess Diana’s best friends and that she wasn’t allowed to take herself to a clinic or hospital even when she was considering ending her life.
“You couldn’t, you know, call an Uber to the palace,” she said.
Describing life in the palace like a prison because she didn’t have access to her driver’s license and her wallet, Meghan said she was “trapped”.
Oprah chimed in: “The way you’re describing this, it’s like you were trapped and couldn’t get help, even through you are on the verge of suicide. That’s what you are describing.”
Meghan replied: “Yes. That’s the truth.”
Meghan said she felt “lonely” and isolated after their royal wedding, comparing her time living in London to the experience of being locked down by coronavirus.
She said her reality had been far different to what the public perceived it to be, describing one conversation where she had been advised to “lay low … because you are everywhere”.
“And I said: ‘I have left the house twice in four months. I am everywhere but I am nowhere,’” she said.
On a happy note, the couple revealed they are having a baby girl, due in the American summer.
“It’s a girl,” said Harry after he joined the interview, adding that they would stop at two children.
“To have a boy and a girl, what more could you ask for?”
PRINCE CHARLES GHOSTED HARRY
Joining the interview, Harry revealed his father Prince Charles had “stopped taking my calls” after he moved from the UK to Canada “because by that point I took matters into my own hands”.
Oprah said: “When I ask, why did you leave, the simplest answer is…?”
Harry replied: “Lack of support and lack of understanding”.
Harry said that their decision to move away had been because he was scared of “history repeating itself” in relation to the loss of his mother.
He said the media pressure in London and not feeling supported by the royal family, including his father, had triggered their decision.
Harry said that the Royal Family suddenly withdrew the couple’s security detail just after they moved to Canada, leaving them feeling unsafe.
This had sparked their decision to move to Los Angeles as borders were being closed last year due to the pandemic.
He denied that his decision to step back from senior duties “blindsided the Queen” and that the tipping point for them leaving London was when he felt “desperate”.
“I was desperate,” he said, adding that he had asked for help to deal with the pressure.
Oprah: “So you left because you were asking for help and you couldn’t get it?”
Harry: “Basically. But we never left.”
Meghan said the couple had hoped to move to a Commonwealth country such as New Zealand and perform a lesser role.
“We never left the family … we said, specifically, we are stepping back from senior roles”.
Harry said the royals had failed to support the couple and that he felt he couldn’t go to them for help when Meghan was “in a dark place”.
This had been added to by racist death threats Meghan received.
“I guess I was ashamed of admitting it to them,” Harry said.
“It’s a very trapped environment,” he said of the family.
“I didn’t have anyone to turn to.
“You know we’ve got some very close friends that have been with us through this whole process.
“But for the family, they very much have this mentality of: ‘this is just how it is, this is how it’s meant to be. You can’t change it. We’ve all been through it.”
“But what was different for me was the race element, because now it wasn’t just about her, it was about what she represents and therefore it wasn’t just affecting my wife, it was affecting so many other people as well and that was the trigger for me.”
‘JEALOUSY’ AFTER AUSTRALIAN TOUR
Harry said his relationship with the Royal Family had soured after the couple’s Australian tour.
Meghan had performed so well in connecting with the public on the tour that it bore shades of a similarly successful tour his own parents, Charles and Diana, had taken early in their marriage.
Oprah: “Are you saying that there were hints of jealousy?”
Harry: “I just wish that we would all learn from the past, but to see how effortless it was for Meghan to come into the family so quickly … and to be able to connect with people …”
He said Meghan “was very much welcomed into the family” but that once her profile rose and she was warmly embraced across the Commonwealth, the relationship had changed.
The couple also revealed that they had watched the Netflix series, The Crown.
“We have watched some of it,” Meghan said.
Harry said he felt “trapped” by the institution of the monarchy and that he felt “huge compassion” for other members of his family who felt the same way.
Oprah: “Please explain how you, Prince Harry, raised in a palace in a life of privilege, literally a prince, how you were trapped?”
Harry said they were “trapped within the system”. “Like the rest of my family are. My father and my brother, they are trapped. They don’t get to leave and I have huge compassion for that,” he said.
Harry said his late mother would have been upset by the couple’s decision to step back from Royal duties.
“I think she would feel very angry with how this has panned out and very sad,” he said.
“But ultimately all she’d ever want is for us to be happy.”
The couple said they had turned to their controversial Netflix and Spotify deals because they couldn’t afford to pay for security.
“That was suggested by somebody else by the point where my family literally cut me off financially and I had to afford security for us,” Harry said.
Harry said his family had “cut me off” in the first quarter of 2020.
“But I’ve got what my mum left me and without that we wouldn’t have been able to do this,” he said.
“So touching back on what you asked me, what would my mum think of this – I think she saw it coming.
“I certainly felt her presence throughout this whole process and you know for me I am just really relieved and happy to be sitting here talking to you with my wife by my side.”
HARRY AND WILLS ARE ‘HAVING SPACE’
Harry said he was now closer with the Queen than he had been before.
“I have spoken more to my grandmother in the last year than I have done in many many years,” he said.
The pair had shared Zoom calls so she could see Archie.
“My grandmother and I have a really good relationship and an understanding and I have a deep respect for her,” he said.
He paused for some time before discussing his relationship with Charles, saying that his father was now taking his calls.
“There’s a lot to work through there, you know I feel really let down because he’s been through something similar, he knows what pain feels like and this is … and Archie is his grandson but at the same time you know of course I will always love him, but there is a lot of hurt that’s happened and I will continue to make it one of my priorities to try and heal that relationship,” he said.
On his brother he said he understood there would always be a fascination for their relationship.
“I love William to bits, he’s my brother, we’ve been through hell together and we have a shared experience but we, we were on different paths,” he said.
But Harry said he was hurt at the Queen’s decision to completely withdraw his patronages but that he understood why she had done so.
He also indicated that he and William are not in close contact.
“The relationship is space at the moment and you know time heals all things, hopefully,” Harry said.
Meghan said that Harry’s decision to move to the US had saved her life and their marriage.
“We’re actually on the other side, we’ve actually not just just survived but are thriving….I think that all of those things that I was hoping for have happened,” she said.
“This is in some ways this is just the beginning for us.”
‘CHARACTER ASSASSINATION’
Meghan said that she knew “we weren’t being protected” after the couple’s Australian tour when she was pregnant.
She said she wasn’t protected from “a real character assassination” and that her then unborn child, Archie, was singled out and treated worse than the Queen’s other great grandchildren.
“They were saying they didn’t want him to be a prince or a princess … which would be different rom protocol, and that he wasn’t going to receive security,” Meghan said.
“This went on for the last few months of our pregnancy.
“He needs to be safe …”
She said she was told by Harry and other family members.
“It was a decision that they felt appropriate,” she said.
Meghan said that she wanted her children to be called prince or princess so that they would be afforded the protection and security of the title but that she was told a centuries-old tradition was being changed.
“It’s not their right to take it away,” Meghan said.
“While I was pregnant they said they want to change the convention. For Archie. Why?”
Meghan said she suspected the fact that she was bi-racial had impacted the decision to treat Archie differently.
She said that Harry had related conversations to her that had with the family where the colour of their baby’s skin had been a matter of concern.
“In those months when I was pregnant,” she said.
“(There were) concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he was born.”
MEGHAN & HARRY’S SECRET WEDDING: ‘I WENT INTO IT NAIVELY’
Meghan and Harry held a secret wedding three days before their highly publicised wedding.
Meghan told Oprah Winfrey that the pair called the Archbishop of Canterbury and held a private service in their backyard.
“No one knows that,” Meghan revealed in her explosive interview with Oprah.
“We just said ‘this thing, the spectacle is for the world but we want our union between us.”
The royal couple will reveal the gender of their baby in their sit-down tell all with Oprah Winfrey.
A heavily pregnant Meghan had a “socially-distanced” hug with Winfrey as they started talking in the highly anticipated interview.
Meghan confirmed there had been no payment and no agreement made over the questions Oprah could ask.
During the tell-all, Meghan described her wedding day and how she felt it was “an out of body experience” that she had little control over.
“We were both really aware … that this wasn’t our day, this was the day that was planned for the world,” Meghan said.
“I will say I went into it naively because I didn’t grow up knowing about the Royal family.”
Meghan said she had gone into the relationship without preparing and researching and that hadn’t even ever looked up Harry online.
“I didn’t fully understand what the job was, right, what does it mean to be a working royal,” she said.
“I think there was no way to understand what the day to day was going to be like.
“I think as Americans especially, what do you know about the Royals? It’s what you read about in fairytales.
“It’s easy to have an image of it that is so far from reality.”
Meghan described her first meeting with Queen Elizabeth and how it was an informal meeting at the home of “Fergie”, Eugenie and Beatrice.
“It turned out the Queen was finishing a church service there in Winsdor and she was going to be at the house and I remember Harry and I were in the car and he says … “you’re going to meet her”,” Meghan recalled.
“And I said Oh great! He says, do you know how to curtsy?
“And I said what? Now I thought genuinely that that was what happens outside, that it was part of the fanfare …
“That was really the first moment that the penny dropped.”
She said she practised out the front of the house with the help of Harry and Fergie.
“I practised really quickly and we went in … and apparently I did a very deep cursty and I don’t remember it and then we just sat there and chatted.”
She said their first conversation was “lovely and easy”.
TRUTH BEHIND KATE RIFT
Meghan said that Kate Middleton had made her cry during the couple’s wedding plan and that she was shocked when a story spread in the media that the “reverse happened”.
She said that Kate had later apologised but that the palace had let a false story that Meghan had made Kate cry over an issue with wedding dresses.
Oprah pressed her on why Meghan had cried.
“I don’t think it’s fair to her to get into the details of that because she apologised and I have forgiven her.
“What was hard to get over was being blamed for something that not only I didn’t do and that happened to me and the people that were part of the wedding.”
She also said that the media focus on her “rift” with Kate had hurt their relationship.
“She’s a good person and I think so much of what I have seen play out is this idea of polarity where if you love me you don’t have to hate me. And if you love her you don’t need to hate me.”
Meghan said she was held to a different to standard to her sister-in-law.
Oprah: “Do you think there was a standard for Kate in general and a separate one for you and if so why?”
Meghan: “I don’t know why. I can see now what layers were at play there and again they seemed to want a narrative of a hero and a villain.”
MEGHAN WAS ‘SILENCED’
Meghan said that she struggled with losing her independence and being told what she was allowed to say publicly.
Oprah: “Were you silent or were you silenced?”
Meghan: “The latter.”
She said she later realised that the PR advice she was being given by the Palace wasn’t helping her.
“That was really hard to reconcile because it was only once we were married and everything stared to worsen that I came to understand that not only was I not being protected but that they were willing to lie, to protect other members of the family but they weren’t willing to tell they truth to protect me and my husband,” she said.
Oprah asked the Duchess: “You did not feel supported by the powers that be?”
Meghan responded that there was a difference between the Windsor family and the Royal family.
“There’s the family and then there’s the people that are running the institution,” Meghan said.
“The Queen for example has always been wonderful to me.”
“Everyone welcomed me.”
QUEEN’S SPEECH
Meantime, Queen Elizabeth II delivered her annual Commonwealth Day speech. Seemingly ignoring the drama surrounding her family, the Queen highlighted the challenges of the past year during the pandemic, and the importance of staying in touch.
“The testing times experienced by so many have led to a deeper appreciation of the mutual support and spiritual sustenance we enjoy by being connected to others,” she said.
The Queen also praised people’s adaptability during uncertain times, saying “connecting and communicating by our innovative technology” has allowed people to “stay in touch with friends, family, colleagues and counterparts” like never before.
Traditionally, a Commonwealth Day service would be held at Westminster Abbey and attended by members of the royal family and key guests from across the Commonwealth, however due to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, the Queen recorded a televised message at Windsor Castle instead.
Last year’s Commonwealth Day service marked the Duke and Duchess’s final royal engagement before they stepped down as working senior royals.
BULLYING PROBE
Prince Harry and Meghan’s 2018 royal tour of Australia will be at the centre of a Buckingham Palace bullying investigation.
The Duchess of Sussex is accused of losing her temper with staff during the 16-day royal tour, and at one point, a hot drink was knocked over.
It was also claimed that Megjan was upset that she was only given a wing of the Australian Governor General’s Sydney residence, Admiralty House, to stay in, rather than the whole property.
The claims are at odds with pictures of General Peter Cosgrove, who was Governor-general at the time, smiling with Prince Harry and Meghan in front of the Sydney Opera House.
However, a former staffer of the couple who had helped planned the Duke and Duchess’s wedding, Melissa Touabti quit just one month after the end of the Australian tour, which also included a stop in Melbourne.
The Sunday Times reported claims including that Meghan “went mental” at Touabti because she did not order blankets in the correct shade of red for Prince Harry’s friends, who were attending a shooting party.
“The Australia tour is one of the most important in the royal world but there have long been allegations of rows with staff,” a source told The Sun.
“If these assistants come forward it will form the centre of the Palace’s bullying probe. It was a critical time.”
Up to a dozen staffers were expected to take part in the bullying claims probe, which was launched last week.
Meghan has denied all allegations of bullying, saying that she was a victim. Her lawyers have argued the probe, and the story that sparked it, was part of a “smear campaign” ahead of the couple’s interview with Oprah Winfrey.
The Queen was not expected to watch the Oprah interview, with sources claiming she wanted to concentrate on the health of Prince Philip, who remains in hospital.
CBS has paid Winfrey’s company $11 million for the interview, which has been sold to 68 countries, including Australia and Canada.
Channel 10 will air the program in Australia on Monday at 7.30pm.
If you need help, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14.
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