London: We were expecting fireworks from their tell-all interview but Harry and Meghan instead lit a raging bonfire which threatens to engulf the royal family.
Not even Princess Diana went this nuclear during her own infamous confessional with the BBC’s Panorama program in 1995. That interview has long been regarded as the most-jaw dropping in royal history but after today ranks second.
Against the backdrop of the terrible suffering of the British people during the coronavirus pandemic, complaints about being denied taxpayer-funded security, debates about whether their son Archie should be called a prince, and revelations about a tiff between Meghan and Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge over a flower girl’s dress are at best tone-deaf and at worst insensitive.
But three key revelations blow away those more trivial moments.
The first – that a senior member of the monarchy fretted to Harry about how dark his baby’s skin would be will – was a genuine bombshell and must have been sickening to hear at the time.
This direct charge of racism at the heart of the royal family will be highly damaging in multicultural Britain. About 15 million of the United Kingdom’s 66 million residents weren’t born there. And the Queen’s beloved Commonwealth has a highly diverse membership. In refusing to name the offending person, Harry and Meghan have cast a big cloud over the whole monarchy.
In refusing to name the offending person, Harry and Meghan have cast a big cloud over the whole monarchy.
Harry also took a shot at every member of his family for not defending Meghan against what he said was racially-slanted press coverage. “One of the saddest parts is that over 70 female members of Parliament called out the colonial undertones of articles written about Meghan, but nobody in my family said anything over the course of three years,” he said. “That hurts.”
He theorised that the family never took a stand publicly because they were worried about upsetting the press. Harry’s message is that turning a blind eye to racism is just as bad as being a racist.
The second key moment – Meghan’s disclosure that she contemplated suicide and “didn’t want to be alive” during her pregnancy – was shocking and distressing.
Meghan’s mental health battle bears striking similarities to the struggles of Diana in the 1980s and 1990s and the public will quickly make the connection. In the Panorama program, Diana spoke of her bulimia, loneliness and lack of support from the institution and close family members. Meghan says she went through a similar experience, to the point where she was on the verge of taking her own life. Royal officials have serious questions to answer if, as Meghan claims, they rejected her repeated requests for help.
The final take-home is how unlikely it seems that Harry and Meghan could ever reconcile with the royal family. Much has been written over many years about how much hatred Harry feels towards the press but we can now see much of that rage is also being directed at his own family.
Stressing they had no complaints about the Queen, the couple proceeded to tip a bucket on Prince Charles, revealing he had at one point stopped taking his son’s calls. The fact that Prince Charles walked Meghan down the aisle in 2018 because her own scandal-plagued father was not welcome was not acknowledged.
“I feel really let down because he’s been through something similar, he knows what pain feels like, and Archie’s his grandson,” Harry said. “At the same time I will always love him. But there’s a lot of hurt that has happened.”
The royal family has so often adopted a bunker mentality when they’re under scrutiny but the serious claims raised in this interview – racism and suicide – will not just burn out. They will have to be addressed.
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