What does Harry and Meghan’s revealing interview with Oprah Winfrey mean to the royal family?



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It is clear from the trailer for Oprah Winfrey’s interview, starring Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, that the spirit of Harry’s mother, Princess Diana, will take on great importance. “My biggest concern is that history repeats itself,” says Harry, possibly referring to Diana’s tragic death in a car accident in Paris in 1997. The treatment of Harry and Meghan by the press will also feature prominently: it has more than a year has passed. since ‘Megxit’, when the couple resigned as a major royal, and Meghan is fresh from her legal victory over Associated Newspapers by printing excerpts from a private letter to her father.

Here’s what to expect from the Sussexes’ revealing interview with Oprah on March 7 (broadcast in the UK on ITV at 8pm, March 8).

“Almost insurmountable, it seems like there was a breaking point,” Oprah tells Meghan in the trailer.

The Sussexes have consistently shown their vulnerability in media appearances, since their 2019 interview in Africa with ITV news anchor Tom Bradby. It was then that he revealed that his friends in the UK had told him: “The British tabloids will destroy your life.” This suggests they can talk to Oprah about mental health, a topic the Sussexes often want to discuss: Harry, 36, created Heads Together, a mental health initiative, with the Cambridges in 2017.

In December 2020, the Sussexes launched their podcast, Archewell Audio, and their list of guest speakers indicated that they will use their new platform to discuss environmental causes, racial equality, and mental health; Oprah’s interview will be another chance to continue your conversation about the latter. The royal family and mental health were also addressed in the latest series of The crown, where Princess Diana’s bulimia, sadness, and isolation were consistent themes. Forty years ago, those mental health issues were largely hidden under the rug, but the Sussexes want to be open about these important issues.

“You’ve said some pretty shocking things here,” Oprah tells Harry and Meghan.

Oprah is presumably referring here to more revelations about her deal from the press and possibly the ‘gray suits’ at Buckingham Palace. This could explain the timing of the leak of Meghan’s alleged bullying. This week, the Times reported, a source “claimed that she expelled two personal assistants from the home and was undermining the trust of a third staff member.” A spokesman for the Sussexes said of the allegations: “They were the victims of a calculated smear campaign based on misleading and harmful misinformation.” Oprah’s interview was pre-recorded, so the Sussexes will not be able to fight the accusations on the air.

How does the James Corden interview fit in with the Oprah interview?

Following Meghan’s legal victory over Associated Newspapers, the Sussexes have been in for something of a media campaign: Harry’s first appearance with James Corden in a convertible bus in Los Angeles in February, and now Oprah’s interview. In Corden’s interview, there were flashes of the old, cheeky, knocked out Harry as he ran around a Los Angeles assault field and taunted Corden. Almost everything Harry said was headline-worthy, from the Queen sending Archie a waffle maker as a gift to Archie’s first word: crocodile. He also brought up his feelings about the media, saying, “We all know what the British press can be like, and it was destroying my sanity,” but any anger was overshadowed by his lighthearted and carefree joke.

Corden’s interview was said to be the ‘casual’ one, with Harry in jeans and a baseball cap, as opposed to the suit he wears in the Oprah interview. The emotion of the interview came from a prince, as he is known throughout the interview, who does ‘little princely’ things: go to the bathroom, take an assault course.

Meghan, 39, makes an appearance, somehow, via Harry’s cell phone. As well as showing Harry’s laid-back and casual side, Corden’s interview reinforced the Sussexes’ message about ‘public service’, which Harry frequently referred to, echoing his statement last month: “We can all live a life. service life. The service is universal. “This was interpreted by royal observers as a concise response to the statement from Buckingham Palace on the couple’s withdrawal from their royal duties: royal family, it is not possible to carry on with the responsibilities and duties that come with a life of public service ”.

The health of Prince Philip

It remains to be seen to what extent the interview has irreparably damaged the relationship between the royal family and the Sussexes, as it comes at a time when Harry’s grandfather, Prince Philip, is recovering from heart operation at the age of 99. years. The family is likely to care first and foremost for the well-being of the Duke of Edinburgh.

And how will the audience perceive the drama? While other members of the royal family have been accused of violating lockdown rules, the Queen has followed them to the letter in bringing Zoom in, continuing his life of service, praising the launch of the vaccine to bosses. of the NHS and encourage people to get COVID. -19 jab. In return, the public can compare the Queen’s conduct in this period of global crisis to the time when the Sussexes expressed their disgust at the media intrusion into their lives.

Read also:

One year after Megxit, what’s next for the royal family?

What really happened to Meghan Markle’s name on Archie’s birth certificate?

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