Speaking out about Royals ’liberating’ Meghan, Duchess of Sussex says

Duchess of Sussex hits out at the royal family amid fears she has used an interview with Oprah Winfrey to attack them | WATCH

Harry and Meghan during their recorded interview with Oprah Winfrey. Picture: Harpo Productions

The Duchess of Sussex has ­accused the royal family of “perpetuating falsehoods” about her and Harry as expectations mounted that she would use this weekend’s television interview with Oprah Winfrey to launch a strong attack on them.

Describing the royal family as “the Firm” — a description that could also encompass officials in the royal household — she suggested that she had little to lose by speaking out. “There is a lot that has been lost already,” she said.

She also said it felt “liberating” to be able to speak out about her life in the royal family.

“As an adult who lived a really independent life, to then go into this construct — that is different than I think what people imagine it to be — it’s really liberating to be able to have the right, and the privilege in some ways, to be able to say ‘Yes, I’m ready to talk,’” Meghan said after Winfrey asked when she chose to speak now.

“We have the ability to make our own choices in a way that I couldn’t have said ‘yes’ to you then. That wasn’t my choice to make,” she added.

The remarks came in clips of Meghan speaking to Winfrey released by the US network CBS as a trailer for the interview on Sunday night, in which the couple are expected to speak candidly about their short period as working royals before they stepped down for a life in America.

In one 30-second clip released on social media Winfrey asks the duchess: “How do you feel about the Palace hearing you speak your truth today?”

Meghan replies: “I don’t know how they could expect that, after all of this time, we would still just be silent if there is an active role that the Firm is playing in perpetuating falsehoods about us. And, if that comes with risk of losing things, I mean, I … there is a lot that has been lost already.”

The release of the clips came as Buckingham Palace launched an investigation into claims, revealed in The Times, that the duchess bullied former royal staff. The duchess’s lawyers have denied the allegations. A spokesman for the couple called the reports “a calculated smear campaign based on ­misleading and harmful mis­information”.

Her accusation about “the Firm” — a phrase that one former aide said they had never heard the duchess use — echoes a statement in a letter to The Times from her lawyers. They said that this newspaper was “being used by Buckingham Palace to peddle a wholly false narrative” before the interview was broadcast. The claim has been strongly denied by a Buckingham Palace source, who said they were “deeply upset” by it.

The source said: “It is absolutely untrue that the Palace has been peddling disinformation or conducting any kind of campaign ahead of the interview.

“The ­Palace has not got involved. It has clearly not been coming from us.”

The duchess has long believed that people at the Palace, including members of the royal family, have been briefing the press on negative stories about her, another source said.

They include the account in one newspaper of how the ­Duchess of Cambridge was said to have been left in tears following a fitting for the bridesmaids’ dresses before Meghan and Harry’s wedding.

Another was an incident involving the tiara she was wearing for the wedding, in which Harry was reported to have shouted at Angela Kelly, the Queen’s dresser. Although the row was initially reported to be about the duchess’s choice of tiara, later accounts said it was over disagreements on arrangements for a fitting.

The duchess is also said to have been extremely concerned about the number of stories appearing in the press about her staff leaving and suggesting she was difficult to work for.

Her lawyers say she did not read the press.

The duchess is expected to use the interview to talk about race in Britain as well as press intrusion and the impact that her life in Britain had on her mental health.

Deals have been struck across the globe for the rights to broadcast the interview, ViacomCBS Global Distribution Group said. The show has been licensed to be broadcast in more than 17 countries including on Australia’s Network 10, ITV in Britain and Canada’s Global TV.

The Times