YYou could forgive the British royal family for giving, for the first time, tell-it-all interviews, a wide berth for the foreseeable. The ouster of Prince Andrew by the BBC’s Emily Maitlis in 2019 has managed to achieve the almost impossible: to make the Duke of York look more dubious and less sympathetic.
But if we have learned one thing about the Sussexes, Harry and Meghan, it is that they want to do the opposite of what the other royals want them to do. Next Sunday, March 7, a special 90-minute presentation, Oprah with Meghan and Harry, will be broadcast on the American network CBS. There is also a bidding war between British broadcasters – though not the BBC – for the interview, which is promised to be ‘intimate’ and ‘wide-ranging’.
“Most royal interviews are horrific car accidents,” said Jonny Dymond, the BBC News’ royal correspondent. ‘Princess Diana got enormous sympathy, but did it actually work out as she thought? Certainly not. Prince Charles and Jonathan Dimbleby, Prince Andrew and Emily Maitlis. Now, Meghan is going to get an easier ride from Oprah, I think there’s no doubt about it. But you have to wonder how it’s going to play out. ”
The bulk of the program is a conversation between Oprah Winfrey and Meghan; Harry is expected to only compete in a slot, future-oriented segment. And it seems clear that the reason why this is happening is due to the increasing closeness between the two women. They met for the first time in March 2018, when Winfrey visited London and was invited to Kensington Palace. Two months later she was a guest at the Sussexes wedding at Windsor Castle. Winfrey then wrote in her magazine: O: “All adult beings recognized it as the beginning.”
If it was a courtship, it was a mutual one, sometimes played out on social media. The 67-year-old Winfrey sent gifts for the couple’s baby boy, Archie, ‘welcome to the world’. In December, Meghan, 39, sent Winfrey an impediment from Clevr Blends, a company in which she invested that makes vegan “super slats.” “My new drink for the morning and evening,” Winfrey told her 19.3 million Instagram faithful. Last summer, the Sussexes moved to a $ 14 million home in Montecito, California, not far from Winfrey’s $ 100 million mega-farm, Promised Land.
“We now have the great benefit of reflection, but it’s a curiosity,” Dymond said. ‘Maybe it really went really well with them, but it seems to be a relationship that has definitely thrived in a fairly short amount of time. Now [with the interview] it comes to their mutual advantage: Oprah is an excellent platform for Meghan, and Meghan is a fantastic advantage for Oprah. ”
For Kitty Kelley, an American writer who published a controversial unauthorized biography of Winfrey in 2010, and also wrote extensively about the royal family, the friendship makes sense. “Both have a lot in common: they know what it takes to be a woman of color in a racist society,” Kelley says. “Yet everyone has achieved the American dream of global success and Midas wealth. Both women radiate tremendous charisma, and know how to blind the media, not unlike the late Princess of Wales. Both Oprah and Meghan faced fathers who embarrassed the media. ”
Kelley speaks from experience. Winfrey is famously guarded, and many of the most famous parts of Kelley’s book come from a three-hour conversation she had with Oprah’s father, Vernon Winfrey, at his barber shop in Nashville. “Everyone sees herself in the other,” Kelley says. “Oprah has always wanted to be an actress and mentions ‘dramatic interpretation’ as her talent when she ran out for Miss Black Nashville in 19719. In their personal lives, every woman seems to be the driving force: Meghan is the pressure behind Harry as Oprah is with [long-term partner] Stedman Graham. ”
For Meghan, approving Winfrey could bring some powerful (and lucrative) benefits. Winfrey has turned unknown books into bestsellers, turned diets into overnight sensations, and her support for Barack Obama from 2006 could even leave the balance for him to become president. “Oprah can see that she becomes for Meghan what Maya Angelou was to her: a mentor and best friend,” says Kelley. Winfrey, of course, has a considerable previous form when it comes to world ships. In 1993, Michael Jackson gave her a tour of his Neverland farm and his first interview for 14 years. The program was watched by 90 million: a record for TV interviews that still exists. Tom Cruise jumped on her bench in 2005 to announce his infatuation with his new girlfriend Katie Holmes.
Along the way, a new term, ‘Oprahfication’, was created, a form of therapy in which public confession becomes the first step on the path to forgiveness. When cyclist Lance Armstrong decided in 2013 to clean up about his drug use, it seemed inevitable that he would spill everything on Winfrey.
She also has a history with the royals: Sarah Ferguson made two memorable appearances and then made a series out of six parts, Sarah to find, with Winfrey’s TV network, OWN.
There is also no doubt that Winfrey can get tough. “It was the day before yesterday,” Armstrong said after his appearance. She was particularly remorseful about the American author James Frey, whose memoirs on drug addiction A million small pieces, which Winfrey chose for her book club, was essentially invented. “The nation watched Winfrey skin him, remove and fillet him, baste him with vitriol and bake him in a 10,000-degree oven for one hour,” Nancy Franklin said in the New York resident.
The exchange between Winfrey and the Sussexes should not just be a light braai. Surely Kelley does not expect to see an on-air unravel like that of the Duke of York. “I do not see Prince Andrew’s train wreck of an interview that happened to Meghan and Harry with Oprah, because at least two of the three are too media conscious,” she says.
So what can we expect so far from the 2021 TV event? After the recent confirmation that Harry and Meghan would not return to the UK as full-time royals, it seems clear that there is sadness and a bit of bitterness on both sides. Harry is said to be particularly disappointed to relinquish his honorary military orders, while telling James Corden on Thursday The late late show that his relationship with the British press was ‘toxic’ and that ‘it was destroying my mental health’.
It is suspected that Meghan’s concerns are more related to the lack of support she received after their wedding, and the tension with court officials and senior royals. Finding freedom, a behind-the-scenes book by royal reporters Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand, has already outlined a few of these, such as a senior royal whom Meghan calls ‘Harry’s showgirl’. The Sussexes did not cooperate directly with the authors, but since then it has emerged that Meghan has allowed at least one friend to speak on her behalf.
“It will be fascinating to see what her big beef is,” says Dymond. ‘The crown has existed for 1,000 years and it had some terrible embarrassments at the time. When I heard that Meghan did not like Kate or that Prince Charles was wearing an old old dressing gown, I was not convinced that it would shake the crown to its foundations. ”
More likely, in an echo of what happened to Sarah Ferguson, the interview will be part of an ongoing collaboration between Meghan and Winfrey. They are already working together on a series of mental health for Apple TV, and the Sussexes clearly want to build a media portfolio. The mutual benefits are clear, Kelley says. “Great global reviews for Oprah and worldwide sympathy for the excommunication royals, who wanted to keep their royal supplies in America … It’s a win-win around the world.”