Meghan and Harry: Penny Junor says there is ‘complete breakdown of trust’ with royal family

Royal expert Penny Junor reveals just how bad the ramifications from Harry and Meghan’s Oprah interview are and how the couple failed Thomas Markle.

The fallout from Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s explosive interview with Oprah Winfrey is so big that the royal family may never be able to trust the couple again, a respected royal commentator says.

UK royal journalist and author Penny Junor has followed the royal family for 40 years.

In an exclusive live chat with News Corp Europe Correspondent Stephen Drill, Junor said “there is complete breakdown of trust” between the couple now living in the US and the royal family back in Britain.

“Harry and Meghan gave this interview, lobbed an absolute hand grenade into the royal family, into his family, Meghan may not care very much for her in-laws, or for his country or the monarchy but for Harry this is all he has known and loved all of his life and he has thrown an absolute bomb on it,” she said.

The Queen’s response to the Oprah interview was “fair enough because it is a private matter”, she said.

In comparison, Junor said details of a private conversation between princes Harry and William exposed by Oprah’s best friend Gayle King was a new low.

“I think that is the most appalling thing about the whole story because it means there is no longer any trust at all or there cannot be between the family and Harry and Meghan. Any phone call they have, any visit … who is to say now that that conversation is not going to appear all over the world on prime time television,” she said.

Junor said the comments in regards to Kate making Meghan cry on her wedding day would have hurt William the most.

“William is incredibly protective about his wife; here was his brother’s wife throwing his wife under the bus.

“For Meghan to name Kate in an argument that we don’t know who cried, to put her name out there, William would have found unforgivable.”

Penny Junor talks to Stephen Drill during a live chat for News Corp.

Buckingham Palace is looking into allegations of bullying against Meghan made by two of her former private assistants in 2018.

Junor said the palace “made a huge mistake” by not investigating the matter then.

“I can understand why the palace decided not to pursue it because Meghan was newly-arrived in the royal family, they wanted to make her feel happy there, and they absolutely wanted this marriage to work,” she said.

The British commentator added the palace also had to tread carefully because of Meghan’s race.

“She’s not just Harry’s bride, she’s a bride of mixed race and as we know from the interview and the charge of racism, this is a very delicate issue, a very delicate situation to have to deal with so the palace decided not to deal with it.”

As a result the story about the bullying claims against Meghan were leaked to the press before the Oprah interview went to air, Junor said.

“I think somebody felt that the Duke and Duchess were going to get the stage to themselves on the Oprah interview, for two hours they were going to talk to Oprah, everyone was shaking in their boots about what they were going to say, so I think the feeling was better to get that story out there ahead of the interview rather than after the interview, because after it it would have seemed like sour grapes.”

Junor said she was “puzzled” by Meghan’s claim that the palace failed to help her when she was having suicidal thoughts.

Harry and Meghan have made some claims that have left royal commentators including Penny Junor puzzled. Picture: AFP

“I was very puzzled by the idea that she went to the head of HR and they didn’t help her,” she said.

“Where was her husband in this? Harry told us before he met Meghan that he has had counselling to help him grieve for his mother’s death.”

Junor also noted Harry had contact with some of the country’s top mental health experts in his work with the group Heads Together.

“Instead the palace were blamed for not helping her. I am puzzled by that, I’m really puzzled,” Junor said.

The author of The Firm suggested Meghan had the same insecurities that Princess Diana had which is why she didn’t fit into the royal family.

“So much of what Meghan said sort of echoed Diana,” she said.

“Diana had suicidal feelings, Diana suffered from her mental health problems.”

Both Meghan and Diana come from broken families with Diana’s mother leaving the family when she was six just as Meghan’s father left the home when she was six.

Junor said she sympathised with Meghan’s father, Thomas Markle, who fell out with his daughter after organising paparazzi shots ahead of the royal wedding in 2018.

Meghan Markle with her parents Thomas Markle and Doria Ragland. Picture: Thomas Markle: My Story

“Yes he gets paid interviews but he was not prepared for this. He was a man living on his own quietly in Mexico and suddenly the world’s press are at his door step,” Junor said.

She also revealed that Harry and Meghan refused to pay around $10,000 for two of their advisers to travel to Mexico to brief Thomas ahead of the wedding so he would be prepared for the media onslaught.

“My understanding is that at the time there were two people within Harry’s household who went to Harry and Meghan and said ‘look we think it would be a good idea if we went down to Mexico, met your father, talked to him about what he can expect and how to handle it’ and they were told that they would not get paid to do that,” Junor told News Corp.

She added Harry should have made the trip himself.

“Wouldn’t it also have been a good idea for Harry to have gone to Mexico himself at some stage and met the father of his about to be bride.”

Junor also backed the royal family against claims they are “racist” after Meghan revealed to Oprah a senior royal had quizzed Prince Harry about Archie’s skin colour before he was born.

“In my experience … I would say they were not racist by any stretch of the imagination but I am not black, I am white, arguably I can’t tell. But certainly if you look at Prince Charles he was one of the first instigators of the black community and the police getting together when there were racial tensions in Britain.”

“I would really be so surprised if he had said anything derogatory, or William I just can’t see it in this family. What I can see is, ‘gosh I wonder what colour is the baby going to be?’

“Couples of mixed race have that conversation all the time.”

Originally published as Meghan and Harry: Penny Junor says there is ‘complete breakdown of trust’ with royal family