Here are the key revelations from the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s bombshell Oprah Winfrey interview on primetime US television.
– Meghan’s mental health
The Duchess of Sussex revealed she had suicidal thoughts and said: “I just didn’t want to be alive any more.”
She said she begged for help, and asked to go somewhere to get help, and approached one of the most senior people in the institution, but was told it would not look good.
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The duchess said: “I said that I needed to go somewhere to get help. I said that I’ve 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.”
– Baby Sussex is a girl
Harry and Meghan revealed they are expecting a baby girl.
The duke joined his wife in the second half of the interview, and told the chat show host: “It’s a girl.”
He said his first thought was “amazing” when he discovered they were having a girl, adding: “Just grateful. To have any child, any one or any two, would have been amazing.
“But to have a boy and then a girl, I mean what more can you ask for? Now we’ve got our family, we got the four of us and our two dogs.”
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Asked if they were “done” with two children, Harry said “done” and Meghan said: “Two is it.”
She also confirmed the baby is due in the “summertime”.
– Royal family accused of racism
Meghan said, when she was pregnant with Archie, an unnamed member of the royal family raised “concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he’s born”.
Asked whether there were concerns that her child would be “too brown” and that would be a problem, Meghan said: “If that is the assumption you are making, that is a pretty safe one.”
Pushed by Winfrey on who had those conversations, Meghan refused to say, adding: “I think that would be very damaging to them.”
She added: “That was relayed to me from Harry, those were conversations the family had with him, and I think it was really hard to be able to see those as compartmentalised conversations.”
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– Archie’s title
Meghan suggested she and Harry wanted Archie to be a prince so he would have security and be protected.
The duchess expressed her shock at “the idea of our son not being safe”, and the idea of the first member of colour in this family, not being titled in the same way as other grandchildren.
Archie, who is seventh in line to the throne, is not entitled to be an HRH or a prince due to rules set out more than 100 years ago by King George V.
He will be entitled to be an HRH or a prince when the Prince of Wales accedes to the throne.
As the first born son of a duke, Archie could have become Earl of Dumbarton – one of Harry’s subsidiary titles – or have been Lord Archie Mountbatten-Windsor, instead at the time of his birth, a royal source said Harry and Meghan had decided he should a regular Master Archie Mountbatten-Windsor.
– The Prince of Wales
The Duke of Sussex said his father the Prince of Wales stopped taking his calls while Harry and Meghan were in Canada “because I took matters into my own hands. I needed to do this for my family”.
He said Charles wanted him to put his plans in writing.
– The Queen
Harry denied that he had “blindsided” his grandmother Queen with the bombshell statement about stepping down as senior royal.
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The duke said he believed the report probably could have come from “within the institution”.
– The Duchess of Cambridge
Meghan said Kate made her cry ahead of her wedding.
Reports circulated ahead of the Sussexes’ nuptials that Meghan left Kate in tears at Princess Charlotte’s bridesmaid dress fitting.
But Meghan told Winfrey the “reverse happened”.
Meghan said she was not sharing the information to be “disparaging”, but added it was “really important for people to understand the truth”.
“She’s a good person,” the duchess added.