LONDON (AP) – Britain’s royal family recorded the quake on Monday from a sensational television interview by Prince Harry and the Duchess of Sussex, in which the couple said they encountered racist attitudes and a lack of support that led Meghan to suicidal thoughts. driven.
The couple gave a deeply unflattering depiction of life in the royal household, suggesting a cold, unkempt institution that they should flee to save their lives.
Meghan told Oprah Winfrey that at one point I “did not want to live anymore” and had uncontrollable suicidal thoughts. She said she sought help from the human resources department in the palace, but was told they could do nothing.
While most in Britain have yet to see the interview, which airs Monday night, the anti-monarchy group Republic said the Winfrey interview gives a clearer picture of what the royal family is like – and it’s not pretty.
“Whether it’s for the sake of Britain or for the sake of the younger royals, this rotten institution must go,” said Graham Smith of the campaign group.
‘Some people will say’ well, you would say that ‘, but this interview only indicated what many people have known for years: the monarchy is deeply rooted and does not reflect British values. ″
In the soul-bar interview, Meghan, 39, admitted that she was naive at the beginning of her relationship with Harry and unprepared for royal life.
Meghan, who identifies as dual, described that “there were concerns and conversations about how dark his skin could be when he was born, when she was pregnant with son Archie.”
Harry confirms the conversation and says, “I was a little shocked.” He said he would not disclose who made the comment.
Harry, born a royal prince, described how his wife’s experience helped him realize how he and the rest of the family were trapped in an oppressive setting.
“I was trapped, but I did not know I was trapped,” Harry said. “My father and my brother, they’re trapped.”
Meghan, he said, “saved me.”
The younger royals – including Harry, Meghan, Prince William and William’s wife, Catherine, made a campaign for mental health support and awareness one of their priorities. But Harry describes that a royal family is completely incapable of providing the support to its own members.
“For the family, they have the mentality: ‘It’s just the way it is, it’s the way it’s meant, you can not change it, we’re all gone through it,’ Harry said.
Sympathy for the couple poured in from the United States, where the two-hour interview aired Sunday night. It will be shown later Monday in Britain, where some see Meghan and Harry as a couple who put personal happiness above public duty.
Tennis star Serena Williams, a friend who attended Harry and Meghan’s wedding, said on Twitter that the duchess’ words illustrate the pain and cruelty she experienced.
“The consequences for mental health of systemic oppression and victimization are devastating, isolating and all too often deadly,” Williams added.
American actress Meghan Markle, star of the American TV legal drama “Suits”, will marry Harry, a granddaughter of Queen Elizabeth II, in May 2018 in Windsor Castle. Their son, Archie, was born the following year.
In early 2020, Meghan and Harry announced that they were ending their military service and moving to North America, citing intolerable intrusions and racist attitudes from the British media. They settled in Santa Barbara, California, and chatted with Winfrey from their home in the upscale Montecito neighborhood.
Harry said he lived in fear of repeating the fate of his mother, Princess Diana, who was constantly covered by the press and died in a car accident in Paris in 1997 while being chased by paparazzi.
“What I saw was that history repeated itself, but certainly much more dangerously, because then you add race and you add social media,” Harry said.
Both Meghan and Harry praised the support they received from Queen Elizabeth II, Harry’s grandmother.
“The queen has always been wonderful to me,” Meghan said.
But Harry revealed that he currently has a bad relationship with his brother William, and said that it got so bad with his father that Prince Charles at one point stopped taking his calls.
“There’s a lot to work through,” Harry said of his relationship with his father. “I feel really disappointed. He has been through something similar. He knows how pain feels. And Archie is his grandson. I will always love him, but there is a lot of hurt that happened. ”
In a rare positive moment in the interview, Harry and Meghan reveal that their second child, in the summer, would be a girl.