Our royal team on the fallout from Harry and Meghan's explosive interview with Oprah | ITV News

[Music] now somebody told me there was an interview this week that some a couple had done with somebody called oprah winfrey was it heard about it uh yeah along with the other 12 million people in the uk that tuned in to watch the interview yep has anybody not heard about it well i mean we did talk last week about whether or not this was going to be a big interview or not uh we have the answer it was ginormously extrovertedly massively big agreed totally agreed i think we uh we thought it would be uh be big as you say but i mean it was jaw-dropping uh and explosive yeah just revelation after revelation after revelation and we sat up and watched it didn't we through the night on sunday and monday and we just kept looking at each other absolutely flawed by some of the the things that were being said yeah yeah i mean it was like to fill you in dear viewer and dear listener however you're consuming this podcast as i say every week on youtube or on spotify or apple podcast we were literally there like that all night uh well for two hours of the night thinking oh that's quite big all that's really a bit by the end of it as i've said a few times on air recently i sort of sat paralyzed in my chair thinking um right where do we begin where do you begin to decipher that one but i think it was pretty clear that what came out of it in the end but you know two key and very important points about megan's mental health about um allegations of racism um and those are the sort of two big issues i think that have dominated the fallout from this and done perhaps the most damage to the royal family particularly if you're in another country if you're abroad looking in yeah we wondered didn't we whether they would talk about the institution of the monarchy or whether they would talk personally about the family and members within that institution and they did and they tackled they tackled both and they tackled both head-on yeah exactly they they didn't hold back and you know um all congratulations to oprah winfrey for landing such a phenomenal interview and for doing it so well i mean there are some people that say that she should have asked more questions or different questions or push them on things or or challenge them a bit more um but actually you know given what she got out of this couple um then you know full congratulations to her i think it was she was brilliant and gave them the space to talk and to say what they wanted but it was quite clear that harry and megan were at a place where they were ready to talk and to sort of offload how they were feeling and um they they came ready to say this stuff and and oprah gave them the space to deliver it we don't i mean oprah said didn't she let's tell everybody that there is no subject off limit but what we can't say and i'm not saying this did happen but we cannot rule out the fact that megan and oprah would have had some private conversations don't forget their friends and neighbors in in santa barbara in california and they might well have just decided to to say let's not go there or let's not do that um but nevertheless as you say oprah got a lot out of them so we have decided just two hours still on the cutting room floor that we have oh yes yes that's the other thing she said there were two hours that we watched and there's another two hours you didn't actually see um blimey i mean that was a long conversation we've dispensed with the robinsons royal rota this week because it would basically just have one item lizzie which would be harry meghan and again the interview and the subsequent uh aftermath yeah really yeah yeah exactly and actually it kind of answers that question about why do we always talk about harry and megan when they you know we're royal i'm a royal correspondent you're a royal producer why do we talk about harry and megan what's going to do with the royals anymore well now we know now i know yeah i mean they they are as the queen says herself much-loved members of the family always will be you know harry is uh is the great grandson of the monarch he remains a member of the family but the stuff that they have said have direct implications for the royal family there are implications for the royal family direct implications for britain as a country and how we are seen abroad direct implications for uh you know relations between different um ethnicities in this country um direct consequences for how we deal with mental health um so and direct consequences i think also for harry's relationship with his father and his brother which um be all accounts is very fractured at the moment but we'll bring you some news during the podcast about how harry and william the two brothers might be starting to attempt i won't put it any more than that starting to attempt to repair the big chasm that exists between them at the moment yeah that would be fair right we decided that the best way to tackle this uh is we're going to go through it topic by topic aren't we through the interview we've we've decided on what we think uh are the key issues and we're going to take outs yeah well you wouldn't go so it's right archie what was said about his skin color and what megan said about his titles and the security as well so have a listen in those months when i was pregnant so we have in tandem the conversation of he won't be given security he's not going to be given a title and also concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he's born what about how dark your baby is going to be potentially and what that would mean or look like that was relayed to me from harry those were conversations that family had with him what was that conversation that conversation i'm never going to share um but at the time at the time it was awkward i was a bit shocked um can you can you tell us what the question was no i don't i'm not comfortable with sharing that so we had that megan talking about it we had there harry talking about it they wouldn't say who it was in the royal family that made these um allegedly racist remarks about um archie's skin tone we don't know the context in which it was said we do not know who said it okay let's get all that out there but we just know is that um since the interview has aired it has been made quite clear to us by uh people we've been speaking to but also oprah winfrey herself has come out and said that they were not talking about the queen and the duke of edinburgh but they have both said that they are not who they were talking about because they feel it would be very damaging to that individual yes we have been told as was oprah um that this is not about the queen and prince philip you you asked harry about it when he came out he did not tell you who it was do you did you all have another conversation about it because that was something that there was a big guessing game all around the world who was it who wasn't who wasn't i thought it was very touching that harry still is choosing to protect the identity of whoever that was yes and he did not share the identity with me but he wanted to make sure that i knew and if i had an opportunity to share it that it was not his grandmother mother nor his grandfather that were a part of those conversations that it was not his grandmother and prince philip he said yes he was not his foreign father neither his grand grandmother nor grandfather were part of those conversations he did not tell me who were a part of those conversations as you can see i tried to get that answer uh on camera and off that was over speaking after the event so let's now talk about the actual words themselves um megan's saying that there was a conversation had with harry by the way not with her it was relates to her by harry about the the darkness of archie's skin that the tone of archie's skin i mean i don't know how to explain it i think everyone feels reasonably uncomfortable generally saying it um the words that megan said were that there were concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he's born and as you say she said that that was relayed to her from harry those were conversations that family had with him and then okay and we should be clear they were megan's words so we don't know if they were exactly the words that were used by said unknown family member nevertheless it sparks and i think um megan wanted this interview to spark a debate about race in the uk because my understanding is that megan doesn't think that we in the uk talk about it enough it is an issue there is you know 15 to 20 of the uk population is black asian and minority ethnic therefore why isn't this a debate that we're having more often and i think you will find a lot of people uh people of color who have responded to this interview and said i recognized a lot of what megan said megan was speaking for me yeah that's it i mean we the the conversation this has sparked in the last week because of this is much wider than uh than the claims that megan made in the interview which is what she wanted yes it's become much more of a debate about society and there have been so many people that you know whatever television channel you turn on this week newspaper you open there's a there's a conversation that's happening where people are saying i can totally relate because i've had that happen to me let's give you i mean it might be worth it rather than just focus on this very narrow issue of what was said about archie's skin color and again we don't know who said it or what context it was given or precisely what words were used let's have a flavor about some of the reactions that we've had this week from people about the issue that megan raised everything that megan and harry said really resonated with me it resonated with me because they were describing my life they were describing that tightrope that i have to walk every single day when i leave my house and i feel like we kind of saw this coming and it's heartbreaking to see a woman you know go through that go through suicidal thoughts i think again what really hit me was when she said that she didn't want them to know that she was going through that and i think we as black women we don't want them to see us break i'm a big believer of those who understand racism exist they may not look like us but they know it's those people defending megan who aren't black but they know that it does exist but there's a whole subset of the uk community that just don't want to know that don't want to believe it they don't care so i was tearful yesterday when i watched megan and yes there was a you know a hanging of the shoulders but then you know after thinking about that courageous step that they both took to air their story i felt that that was another step forward there is this general perception that the british don't show racism overtly it's kind of like so but then they're not saying it but they're implying it it's implied racism and it's just unfathomable yeah it's not always about race but it's playing a part so a flavor there of how you know and i thought that was very interesting for example i went out for a walk the other day because actually we were being like flawed by this interview a little bit haven't we and it's been non-stop from from good morning britain and that's a whole other story but we'll get to that um all the way through to news at 11 we were on on monday after this interview aired on itv so having been a bit flawed by i went out for a an afternoon walk one day and actually stopped by a lady who said to me look i saw you on the telly the other day i am black she said i'm a woman i recognize a lot of what megan said she also told me i'm from italy and i even found that when i came to britain you guys don't talk about this stuff you shove everything under the carpet and everyone's too closed and there's an italian saying that so imagine an american woman of color like megan coming over to the uk and not just the uk she went into the royal family um so you can kind of see how that disconnect happened yeah and it's no doubt i mean the the last week the the comments that were said have been taken by harry and megan uh in this way and it has you know there has been a lot of um a lot of debate about the royal family and you know uh this is a family that uh the queen is head of the commonwealth they've you know they prince william has come out today and said uh we as a family are not racist he's addressed it head-on the first comments from uh the royal family um they will be absolutely devastated to hear these words from harry and megan absolutely and actually as you've mentioned it there we're going to sort of maybe run it later chronologically but let's just hear those words from william today and can you just let me know is that the royal family a racist family sir so that was a what we call a doorstep in the industry um is when you throw a question at someone usually a politician in this case a member of the royal family um and normally you get actually zero response or uh sort of brushed off this was something that william clearly wanted to address they were the first comments we've had from a member of the royal family about the whole thing prince charles was asked the other day and um decided not to answer them i think he was taken by surprise i don't know whether or not their comms teams and this is just me guessing here i've told them this is a massive talking point in the country and therefore you might well get questions i don't know um but uh at the very least you would have thought they would have had a conversation that before you go on an event this week this topic this interview has been the you know one of the main news stories uh this week and those were williams responses to that question uh is your family um racist now lizzie when megan mentioned this stuff it came up in a conversation that she had with oprah about archie's titles and security um and she was alleging and i i haven't seen this anywhere but she was alleging that when um when prince charles becomes king and arty is therefore a grand child of a monarch he would should normally automatically become a prince um but she was alleging that the royal family were actively trying to change it for him yeah she was asked by oprah that they must have had some conversations and her own suspicions as as to why they didn't want to make archie a prince and that's where that's where these uh remarks about the color of archie's skin came from that's what she made them off the back of that question but she said that that she thought that they didn't want to make archea prince which archie at the moment is wasn't entitled to a to be a prince or princess only the firstborn of prince william was interested as you mentioned princess there's let's jump in and there will be um he will have a smaller sister now that was one of the things they revealed on the in the course of the interview that archie's going to have a a baby sister so we're talking here about archie being a prince and new baby sister being a princess but at the moment when archie was born um only the uh only prince george was entitled to be a prince as the firstborn of prince william the queen intervened for princess charlotte and prince louis so that they were all princes and princesses archie wasn't entitled to prince or princess but he was what didn't the queen intervene for him she could have done well archie was entitled to take one of prince harry's subsidiary titles so harry is the duke of sussex one of his subsidiary titles is the earl of dunbarton archie was entitled to take that title but we were told at the time no he will be master archie um he is a essentially a private citizen so now that was fun to be harry megan's wish which we kind of thought it was and kind of matched everything that they were saying at the time but you know given what megan said about how the palace was actively spinning against them or to use her words they were lying what to paraphrase her words they were telling what did she say falsehoods in other words lying about us um i don't quite know who to believe here was it the palace saying that harry megan didn't want archie to be a prince or princess or did actually megan want him to be a prince yeah so as you say when prince charles becomes king then his grandchildren are all entitled to be princes and she made she sort of the point she i think was making was that that that would that would be removed and they weren't going to do that now we have never been heard heard that before um so well then maybe there were conversations that were ahead or maybe not but but basically as the rule stands currently and it hasn't been changed we haven't been told of a change anyone who is a grand child of the monarch so therefore archie and his sister baby sister will be grandchildren of the monarch when prince charles becomes king you would have thought that they were automatically confidential princesses um and actually i thought if they were i'll tell you this much and this is just my thoughts if they were thinking of changing it they'd be bloody stupid to do it now wouldn't they given everything that's been said right um we've got time to get through we can't spend too long on one subject but gone then that was the issue you mentioned okay do that quickly so she said didn't see that um that she that they were told the arch she would have no security um when he was born well harry and megan had security at the time as senior working members of the royal family and therefore archie would have been protected they lost that security when they made the decision to to step away and actually yeah harry was very aggrieved about that i mean i think there was a debate in the uk about well there were there were accusations in the new some newspapers why should we as bridges taxpayers pay for harry if he's decided to leave the royal family but i suppose the counter argument is well it wasn't his choice to be born into the royal family and as harry said has my risk level changed because i've left and moved to america the answer was no so he thought that he should be entitled to security now has to pay for it for himself i have to say if we're being blunt here he can afford to pay for it himself so i don't think it's an issue of the money i don't think he just didn't like the principle that it was being taken um away from him i'm at the risk of sounding like a chairman of a debate where we have to move on i am going to move on to topic number two because we've now done number one topic number two is also very serious which is this was when megan um disclosed that she things got so bad for megan that she said that she just didn't want to be alive anymore i knew that if i didn't say it that i would do it and i i just didn't i just didn't want to be alive anymore and that was a very clear and real and frightening constant thought and not only did she say what i think was quite a devastating um and very moving part of the interview that she had decided that you know she was contemplating ending her life because she was so unhappy and her mental health was so bad not only did she say that she also said that when she sought help from the royal family for her mental health she was told that none was forthcoming because she wasn't a paid employee so therefore you're not a cook or a footman or a secretary or a an official you are the wife of a senior member of the royal family therefore we our hr department can't help you that to me seems very odd how they can have hr policies which i mean the senior members of the royal family don't get help um is a topic for discussions which we all have but therefore just have a listen to megan say how and when she went for help and what the response was and so i went to human resources and i said i just really i need help they said my heart goes out to you because i see how bad it is but there's nothing we can do to protect you because you're not a paid employee of the institution okay so a lot to discuss in there as well as there are all these things first of all i think everyone's heart goes out to megan and she was so deeply unhappy that she was contemplating such terrible and drastic things yeah i mean i think um that was absolutely shocking to hear her say that and i mean we knew that they were unhappy we knew that you know even even before they left we knew they were unhappy we knew when our colleague tom bradbee asked her in south africa if she was okay that that you know she clearly wasn't okay but to hear that things were so bad for her that she felt that way is just awful well you know i thought the whole point of the royal family and particularly william and kate's uh campaigning on this issue is that they should end the stigma of mental health and you should equally be able to go and talk about your broken arm as much as you are about a breakdown of your mental health and to to suggest that megan couldn't be seen seeking help for mental health i thought was also very damaging for the royal family given everything that they say and campaign for yeah they've done a huge amount of work uh collectively on mental health that brilliant hedge together campaign um that they did but but even you know harry has spoken publicly about his own mental health and even he said that you know he he wasn't quite sure what to do he felt a bit ashamed about going to people for help and you know this is a family that's worked really hard on this issue and trying yeah and actually but they can't help themselves even this week william and kate we're not going to play the clip because there simply just isn't time but there's some pictures here william and kate talking to um a family this is a service uh called shout where you can t it's a text based service for for people who've got issues with their mental health they were talking to a family whose 12 year old son was contemplating suicide and it was quite a moving conversation um and this you know they are so heavily involved in this campaign and yet we now have allegations from megan and we should be clear here this is megan's side of the story we haven't heard the other side of the story but allegations from megan that she couldn't get the help that she needed when her own mental health was deteriorating there's a couple of issues there one is that the royal family does have what's called the medical household now that's the kind of bunch of doctors uh very senior physicians that look after the royal family why couldn't she have gone to one of them that's a question we don't know the answer to that um for example the you know prince phillips doctor was the one who said you need to go to hospital with your hearts by the way he's still there we will get to that well we might not there's so much to discuss but he's still in hospital and he's moved um but we discussed that last week didn't we yes we did um so i digress we've got the medical household which they could have gone to presumably and also if harry said before that he's received help for his mental health why couldn't he have just handed over the mobile telephone number of the of the mental health expert that he saw yeah there is that but um she she says that there was in her words no help available to her she also talked really sadly about the fact that there was an engagement that they had to go to um they did an engagement at the royal albert hall which we can actually play you pictures from they were going to see uh cirque du soleil and um harry said to her you know are you sure you are okay to come and she basically said that it's not safe to leave me on my own because i don't know what i might do and so that they had to go they went to that engagement together and she said that when she looked at those photographs then out on that night you know they had their sort of game faces on were smiling but actually behind it let's hear that actually yeah let's hear that a bit because so we just showed you the pictures of the actual event that was the engagement that happened that cameras were invited to that megan and harry went to now here megan's explanation of what happened that night because it was the night after or just hours after she told harry about her mental health crisis we had to go to this event and i remember him saying i don't think you can go and i said i can't be left alone because you were afraid of what you might do to yourself if you zoom in what i see is how tightly his knuckles are gripped around mine you can see the whites of our knuckles because we are smiling and doing our job but we're both just trying to hold on now why was she so deeply unhappy well part of the reason she explained was just how she was just you know not given any help that she was kind of silent um she wasn't able to go out when she wanted to go out that everyone was telling her that she was just simply you know out there too much you need to hide away and she said i've been out twice in the last four months or something wasn't it i mean and we said before in this podcast it's not a surprise that she was lonely given she had new life nuke house new country new baby new motherhood new new career new family whatever else um and her allegation is and again this is megan's story it's not the other side that she was lonely and didn't have um any help and what what did oprah ask her you do a very good impression of it lizzy were you silent or were you silenced silenced um now actually and she said the latter yeah exactly i think in last week's podcast we'd had that silent or silenced um and um we didn't have the answer we now have the answer megan said that she was silenced which is all a very it's it's a obviously a big claim um and i think she you know it expresses why she was so deeply unhappy and actually i suppose um her friend janina gavanka who was on television this week kind of hinted at that as well didn't she yeah she did and megan said herself that everyone in her world was given this sort of clear directive uh to say no comment and you couldn't and the palace would protect her you can understand the the no comment because the the running commentary is what um what flares things up what keeps things in the media what keeps you know uh stories running you can understand why why no comment is is often issued and also that protects the friends and family because if they know that that a friend or a family member is is happy to give comment they keep going back to them you only have to look at thomas markle he he keeps talking so people keep asking um davina govanka um so this is megan's friend she spoke at two o'clock in the morning la times she spoke to itv's this morning program with philip schofield and holly willoughby and i we'll run you three of her clips one where she explains that she was speaking with megan's permission so megan knew that she was going to be on the show um secondly um i think janine what do you have a listen these are these are the three clips from jeannie have you spoken to her about coming on this show today oh oh yes absolutely they i i talk to them all of the time we watch this special together actually so so yes so she she is happy for you to be talking talking today i we're all happy that we are in a new era you know we get to tell the truth let's take the issue of mental health first of all and the fact that she said she had absolutely no one to talk to now you're you know you say if even if you can't be together you're facebooking all the time you're chatting all the time and so how come she had no one to go to when she's got you she's got her friends we know her father said yesterday that the family were ghosted so she couldn't she didn't have that avenue for whatever reason so so why at what point did you know she was so seriously mentally unstable as to consider suicide and that she couldn't get help i believe she said that she had no one to turn to within the institution so did she turn to you at any point during that she turns to all of us she turns to her husband and so what did you advise her to do because if it was one of my best friends who was going through something like that i mean that's that's huge and you would be naturally hugely worried and you'd want to be able to help them in some way worried terrified sad and you know after reading this short statement that came out from buckingham palace today i thought two things at one side i i thought i'm so thankful that they are finally acknowledging the experience but on the other side i know that the family and the staff were well aware of the extent of it and though their recollections may vary ours don't because we lived through it with them and there are many emails and texts to support that everybody wants to see you know happiness we we we have campaigns here you know be kind campaigns but of course we all want we want everybody to be happy if that is even remotely possible but then there are all these these dark occasionally a dark shadow comes up you think oh god here we go again here's something else that has to be addressed and now we've got the bullying investigation going on what do you what do you say to the accusations about about her bullying people well i have known her for 17 years and i have seen the way that she regards the people around her and and the people she works with and i can say she's not a bully but i can also say that i am personally glad that people are doing their due diligence because i also know why someone had to leave and it was for gross misconduct and the truth will come out there's plenty of emails and texts about that so there we are oh you've heard dunina say she watched it with megan so she sat down she didn't say she was in the room but she could have been she was sat with megan in montecito watching it that there was a paper trail effectively saying that the royal family were contacted by megan by email and text asking for help and that on this whole bullying allegation that um that preceded the interview you'll be aware of the times uh article we spoke about in depth last week of the bullying claims she said that one of the employees left for gross misconduct her claim we don't know the powers haven't spoken about it just that the palace is has launched an investigation into the bullying claims yeah and she said someone gave me a fact before i came in here that 13 times during the interview the couple blame the institution um and one of these times is is during this segment where she says that they were willing to lie to protect other members of the family but they weren't willing to tell the truth to protect me and my husband well you say it so eloquently but let's say megan say it they were willing to lie to protect other members of the family but they weren't willing to tell the truth to protect me and my husband so you had javina gerbank to talk about the institution megan talking about the institution it kind of this is the enemy for them isn't it i mean that there's a family dynamic here as well and i always say the royal family is two things it is the institution of monarchy it is also a bunch of people who are related which is the conflict often but um javina govanka was clearly sent out with megan's approval to say this stuff um and she said a few times during the course of that interview on this morning that the truth now come can come out i'm so pleased we're in a new era as you said excuse me yeah and i guess that's that's what harry and megan used this this two-hour interview for is to give their side their side their account of of how they felt and um how how things have played out over the last few years having said that when you when you watch the interview back they um they they do blame pretty much everybody else throughout the course of the interview i thought i think you know there's little little where it's sort of yeah i suppose you wouldn't expect harry megan to say actually we did this wrong we did that wrong because if any you're right actually point that out because i don't remember hearing that at all um i could have done this better i could have been a bit more i know xy or zed who knows megan says in the interview how she had no idea what she was getting herself into and i have no doubt until you're in it how could you possibly um possibly know really what what it's like you know in the engagement interview that they gave um you know harry says i've i've tried to warn her i've told her about it i've tried to explain um so what this is like yeah you also spoke about being trapped nearly my family are trapped in this relation in this institution and and i can't get out we'll play that in a bit but i'd say we would do everything chronologically i think just because as we've said this is megan's side of the story there was a two-hour interview with another hour of 25 left on tape they didn't use um why don't you just read if you've got it there lizzie the queen's response to this because it took them a couple of days to come out with the response um but i just think as we're midway through discussing harry and megan let's just be sort of clear about what the royal family's response to all this is uh lizzy's going to read it in her best queen's accent and will also show you the words on screen as she reads them so um you can pretend that lizzy's being the queen my family and i to be clear this this statement was issued by buckingham palace but it was interesting okay so go pictures go voice and she said the whole family is saddened to learn the full extent of how challenging the last few years have been for harry and megan the issues raised particularly that of race are concerning while some recollections may vary they are taken very seriously and will be addressed by the family privately harry megan and archie will always be much much loved family members so um well done with that um statement lizzie i thought you did very well uh 10 out of 10 for your um for your queen's accent what do you have a few years ago a few weeks ago when we were trying to practice how they say yes in the crown you have to say ears yeah um anyway we digress into much more um pathetic things there are very many important things to talk about here so let's talk about the um the royal family statement um and we'll then go back to a bit more harry and megan it took them a couple of days to come out with this statement they so this thing for your information if you're watching this in another part of the world this thing went out between 1am and 3am in the uk on monday morning so sunday night in america when it went out on cbs i mean we haven't actually mentioned that when it aired here on itv or did we say this earlier i had an average of 11 million viewers it peaked at 12 million 54 of all people watching all television was watching this uh we're watching whilst we're watching this um program on monday night on itv between uh 9 00 p.m and 10 p.m um and i think in many ways the reason partly for the for the palace's delay in getting this thing as any sort of response out there is because they kind of wanted the uk public to see the whole thing rather than all the news and the chatter and all the rest of it on the monday they wanted actually okay if you're going to watch this and 12 million people did let's just pause let's see what the uk reaction is and therefore it wasn't really until what time was it about 20 past five on tuesday that we finally got a response from from the palace yeah as as we've said the the time for them to to take to release this statement but i think that they wanted to take their time carefully consider what they were going to say not rush anything out give it a measured response and when it came it was short it made clear that you know there's there's a family at the heart of this and they want to to address these issues privately not not in front of everybody they want to take them away and they they want to to address them properly and actually the the statement i mean there'd been sort of so much reaction and noise around the interview on on um monday and tuesday and this statement just brought everything back down it was very calm considered and um it echoed the statements we've had before that we had when they stepped away as working members where it said that they will remain much loved members of the family and it also said i thought the the key word was that the issues raised particularly that of race are concerning issues is plural they're not saying the only thing we're looking at here is race we look at all the issues also isn't isn't recollections in plural as well with an s yeah that was also interesting some recollections may vary i.e you know they don't necessarily you know remember harry and megan are saying they do exactly when she comes back to the point that this was megan and harry's side of the story it doesn't necessarily mean it's actual fact uh or that it is or that it happened in exactly the way that harry and megan remember uh particularly megan wasn't even there in the room when it was said so i think the palace was probably quite um clever in many ways to say some recollections may vary but what they didn't want to do was pour a whole you know bag of logs on the fire and make the whole thing even worse like if this was politics you that you get the leader of the opposing political party to come out and say a statement and all the rest of it well the palace operates differently to politics and they wanted to calm the whole thing down rather than make it even more inflammatory yeah and i think that they managed that successfully what they don't want is this to become a public tip attack you know they say this in an interview and we say this and then they say this they're going to go away and they're going to look at this privately and it has felt this week like we haven't had there's been no sort of um briefings to papers and you know this said that said it has really been taken offline and um you know the drawbridge is up and they have gone away to to look at this yeah absolutely and when you say they're not going to go she said this we say that um there was a bit of that in the interview itself when it was like did kate make megan cry or did megan make kate's cry question mark so what's the stories at the time were all about um this is so pre-wedding this will be some sort of flower girl they call it bridesmaids dress fittings um that that megan said something that made kate cry and i think was she just pregnant or just uh just had a baby or just had prince louie just had louis and yet uh that megan categorically says the reverse happens i have a listen to what megan said did you make kate cry no was there a situation where she might have cried or she couldn't no the reverse happened and i don't say that to be disparaging to anyone because it was a really hard week of the wedding and she was upset about something but she owned it and she apologized so we care about this why lizzy because i mean lots of families will have dress fittings at weddings and someone will say something and somebody will get upset and you know that's quite normal isn't it what happened to every wedding yeah i think i think you're right it's not here the issue for megan of who made who cry although i'm sure at the time that was uh very accessible to whatever happened and whoever's you know whatever went on behind closed doors to megan the problem was that six or seven months after the wedding she says the reverse of what was out in the press actually happened and she felt aggrieved that nobody corrected that narrative that that narrative was allowed to stay out there and i think that's the issue for megan i was actually just thinking that the you know we were talking earlier about prince william speaking today uh at that events in uh east london he was with kate and maybe the third question from the paul reporter should be kate did you make megan cry and then she could say well can i categorically say that no it was she that made me cry and then we'd have a whole a whole new story on our hands i'm i'm making light of it because actually compared to everything else like skin color and um you know mental health seems uh pretty light nevertheless it's part of what megan said and also what her friend juvenile banker said that you know why is everybody always silent why don't they go out and correct stuff why don't they actually speak and i wonder whether one of the effects of this interview will be that the royal family will change a little more um we always say don't we that whilst it gives the impression of stability we don't have the royal family today that we had in 1952 when the queen took over as it were um and it's not the same royal family as it was in 1936 when her father became king so it does move at the times and maybe this is one of those moments where they might say the palace you know what maybe we do need to sort of if something's out there and it's wrong we need to actually be a bit more forceful about things and say no that's wrong you got it completely the wrong way around yeah i think it's also worth mentioning though that again you know megan this is megan's side of the story and um it's one side we don't know what kate thinks or how okay we could have answered that question today if we didn't or the reporter there didn't but you know kind of why not why not give kate her say then kate what do you think what happened actually kate i suppose then you've got you've got everything then playing out in public is is that really how that's not what they want yeah no no and i think it is worth remembering all along that that what we are looking at here is one side of the story right so let's start we're talking about relationships let's go into relationships because how are we making spoke about the queen uh harry spoke about prince charles and he also spoke about william um let's take the queen first because we should do this in order of seniority but you know let's do it the right way um now i thought they went out of their way to say that the queen was really good to them that they have an issue with her they have a lot of respect for her but equally they were criticizing the institution of which the queen is head and has been running for the last um i forget 69 years 70 years next year isn't it so so how is that not a criticism of the queen yeah i think it was not a direct criticism it but it was an indirect one by criticizing the institution and which she is head of and the family your institution and all the people that work in it are basically messing this up that would be a sort of general summary of what megan and harry said yeah but they were there was a they were deliberately uh very warm towards the queen throughout megan told that story about when they went to to chester together for that first joint engagement how uh the queen royal train engagement yeah to chester if might even have the pictures to show you right now uh where they went on the royal train to chester together but yes as you say lizzie interrupted sorry that they had a they had a blanket share yeah the queen went to share her blanket and she offered she gave megan a gift megan said that the queen had been wonderful to her and warm you know harry talked about how he hadn't blindsided his grandmother with their uh with their news that they were going to move away that he had a huge respect for his grandmother and he would never do that i mean let's hear that bit actually because i think is it worth hearing harry here talk about um that issue of when they announced that they were going to leave the royal family so let's take you back to january of last year the narrative was allowed to run shall we say by the palace that the queen was taken by surprise by harry megan's announcement harry however says he'd spoken to the queen about it and he'd spoken to his father about it have a listen you talked to her several times about this over two years two years but even the night before days before with the statement coming out i remember that conversation so and how do you know she wasn't blindsided because the way it was presented through the press is that suddenly you made this announcement she didn't know it was coming no i i when we were in canada i had three conversations with my grandmother and two conversations with my father um before he stopped taking my calls and then said can you put this all in writing what your plan is your father asked you to put it in writing yeah uh he asked me put it in writing i put all the specifics in there even the fact that we were planning on putting the announcement out on the 7th of january so you just said that your dad stopped taking your calls why do you stop taking your calls because i took matters and by that point i took matters into my own hands it was like i need to do this for my family this is not a surprise to anybody it's really sad that it's got to this point but i've got to do something for my own mental health my wife's um and for the archie's as well because i could see where this was headed so he spoke to the queen he spoke to his father about it his father stopped taking his calls he had to put it in writing in what way are we to believe the royal family were blindsided by this um this announcement in january 2020 i think um from the time the the family from what we were told there there was an awareness that harry and megan were unhappy and were looking at alternative ways of perhaps their role i think where the blindsided story came from was the fact that it was rushed out so quickly in response to a uh in response to a newspaper article saying that they were leaving i think that's where the blind-sided story came from that they sort of very quickly rush out that actually yeah but actually you know as if harry if what harry's saying is true and again we haven't heard the queen's view and so maybe we should shout at the queen next time she's on a visit hello mom how many times did harry call you before they decided to leave um that wouldn't make us maybe i'll wear it so um so yes i mean again we've got there are two sides of the story but harry meghan's side is that they called and they email or they put it all in writing and they said that they wanted out and actually i remember talking to tom bradley about this um when i made a documentary on when they left and he said he kind of knew in africa in october 2019 that harry megan wanted a way out that this was their sort of exit strategy so if they'd had those conversations with with the family then then they can't claim that it was um a surprise uh just on tom braby we've enjoyed um meeting him and saying how he got a mention didn't he in the um in the oprah interview the reporter the reporter yeah not sort of oh tom bradley the guy that harry's known for many years or not sort of that tv anchor in um in the uk but the reporter so i've enjoyed uh talking to tom about that um so that that's the issue with uh you know we talked about the queen and whether or not he was actually indirectly criticizing her because of the way they criticized the institution he didn't really hold back with his father though did he he stopped taking my calls he stopped my money he stopped my security um i don't think harry held back on the debt no this was really sad uh when you know from from harry's point of view his father he says stop taking his calls and uh stop supporting them i mean prince charles was the the man that walked his wife down the aisle on their wedding day because her own father couldn't be there he was there supporting them when they were making that initial move uh paying for it necessarily as well and until they were were able to stand their interference and you know harry and megan have as we've said a lot on this podcast they have um signed some pretty big deals over the last year um and have had quite a substantial amount of money themselves yes they don't really need to worry about the security bill um at the moment do they but um harry looked quite wounded he was asked um he was actually asked by oprah um if prince charles has started taking his calls again i thought that was the most emotional that harry got is he taking your calls now yeah yeah yeah he is um there's a lot to work through there you know i i feel really let down because he's been through something similar he knows what pain feels like and this is and archie's his grandson um but at the same time you know of course i will i will always i will always love him but there's a lot of hurt that's happened and and i will continue to to make it one of my priorities to try and heal that relationship yeah i think that was about as emotional as harry looked throughout the whole interview and it kind of reminded me that what you were watching here play out at the heart of it was a family and family relationships and you know we do breakdown i mean megan's family relationship broke down with her father um there are plenty of other families watching this i'm sure who have got issues with their brothers sisters mothers fathers sons daughters um it does happen it does happen and but to see it have to play out publicly is incredibly sad and you know i think that that going back to the queen's statement that that they want to deal with this privately is is probably a good thing to take this this stuff away and to go and look at it as a family so from father to brother let's have a listen to what he said about prince william you said that your brother was trapped you said that you love your brother and always will love your brother you didn't tell me what the relationship is now though um the relationship is space at the moment and you know time heals all things hopefully now i thought given that everything we know about the fracturing of their relationship and they haven't spoken for the best part of a year um as we recall this podcast by the way um i thought that harry kind of didn't want to go into any more detail i mean this relationship is one of space he said made the hand movement as well but other than that he didn't go much further from where tom bradley asked him in october 2019 that they're on different paths and they don't really see eye to eye and your brother relationship much has been said about that yeah and much will continue to be said about that you know i you know as i said before you know i love william to bits he's my brother we've been through hell together and we have a shared experience but we you know we were we were on different paths well he seemed reluctant didn't he to talk any more about his brother he said that one line and then he wasn't going to go into any more details and william out on an engagement at a school in east london today was actually asked by a reporter there about had he spoken to his brother since the oprah interview and he said i haven't spoken yet but i will do so i mean they haven't spoken i i i've kind of heard that there's been some sort of movement in that now i don't know quite what movement means i can only i can only guess that it's probably some kind of messaging perhaps the i know you know how these royals work sometimes perhaps the two offices have been in touch to say you know do you think you want to schedule in a phone call perhaps we've even done the very modern thing of what's happening to each other or something like that but um but we know they haven't spoken because williams said as much but it rather suggests that they know that this interview was so big that one of the things that might one of the positive things that might come out of it is that they will start talking again they might even might even in time repair that relationship yeah and i think um i think you know they should be given the the space um and the tie you know to hopefully for that to happen for them to be able to uh reconcile and you know wouldn't it be lovely if in july for what would have been diana's 60th birthday if they could both be there together for the unveiling of that statue and i still think yeah healed some of those wounds yeah i still i still think that is the plan at the moment i mean july is a long way off but that's definitely what the plan is um there's so much more we could talk about with this interview um you know we could talk about how harry megan spoke at the end and they've been supporting one another like you saved me you know you saved me there was harry talking about his family being trapped his brother his father were trapped in this institution there's the whole relationship with the press i mean i must say i've missed out on these whatever they were what did they call them holiday parties that us members of the press are meant to go on yeah so apparently we've all i've never had one i've never had one and i've asked other people and they've never had one either so we're all um we're all a bit sad to be missing out on whatever these parties are exactly i mean i have you know sometimes we get really really fancy receptions where we get to meet these uh principles i remember a distinct one on the apron of an airport at the bottom of a plane just underneath the wing with the engine wearing in the background that was pretty fancy where we spoke to prince charles williams come to the back of the plane a few times to say just after we nearly crashed in pakistan um but holiday parties i can't think of any holiday parties no holiday parties maybe we're not important enough to get invited we'll have to work i mean yeah we got invited to donald's house once where prince charles was showing us the work that he was doing and there was a reception there okay was that a holiday party definitely not it was a working visit where we sort of went and filmed around the estate did lots of interviews um i'm waiting for my holiday party invitation and prince harry if you're issuing them prince harry then i'm i'm more than happy to come over to montecito yeah we're there we'll be in montecito next week yeah okay fine yeah i'm i only travel first class but you know if um you know if you're paying i'll definitely definitely come anyway so we spoke about the serious part that harry was raising about the issue with the press was that his family are scared of the tabloid press and the reason they don't take them on we know that harry megan aren't scared because they took um on the mail on sunday and won the reason why they're not uh the reason they are scared he says is because they're worried about the coverage that they're going to get from the press and that you know the monarchy only exists at the behest of the people and the depressed turn against the monkey then it kind of gave him over and that's what he was suggesting wasn't it there was an opportunity many opportunities for my family to show some public support and i guess one of the most telling parts and the saddest parts i guess was over 70 members of parliament female members of parliament both conservative and labour came out and called out the the colonial undertones of articles and headlines written about megan yet no one from my family ever said anything over those three years that that hurts but i also am acutely aware of where my family stand and how scared they are of the tabloids turning on them turning on them for what they're the royal family yes but it's um there is this invisible what's what's what's termed or referred to as the invisible contract behind closed doors uh between the institution and the tabloids uk tabloids so one of the one of the fallouts to this interview um and many people think this is a good thing other people will not it is the departure from itv's good morning britain that's our breakfast show on itv here of piers morgan now i had a kind of ringside seat of this because i was um after staying up all night as lizzy has um previously mentioned typing away i was on good morning on monday um and and piers morgan was saying some quite um inflammatory things about um megan that he didn't believe her story we're not going to play them here because the fact he's left itv um because people generally disprove the message that he was putting out there and the impact it might have on people's mental health and those who are seeking help for suicide i think it would be wrong to play them again but um you know i remember disagreeing with him on that program saying to him that i thought you know who are we to say that megan's not telling the truth when she was the one suffering from this um very severe mental health issue at the time um but he's gone um you know the the bombastic piers morgan on good morning britain after how many years is it did he say six years six or seven years he's done he's finished he's gone he's left yeah and megan herself actually filed a complaint following that program to the ceo of itv um you know saying that that essentially if if he's going to speak like that about mental health it will affect other people and um you know i think him dismissing issues like like that that is megan is saying that is how she felt and i don't think it's for anybody else to question question what she's saying and actually you know for her to be able to to get up and and say to other people that's how i was feeling it's an incredibly brave thing to do and it will potentially help other people so for him to dismiss it so easily um that that has you know been been widely criticized yeah and i think itv generally uh concluded that it was against what the company is doing in every other area of the organization but also as a broadcaster as a public service broadcaster to get the message of um you know mental health support um out there so piers morgan's controversial time at the helm of good morning britain has come to an end as a result of um as a result of this interview i don't think megan and harry will be um crying into their conflicts whether they watch uh good morning britain over in california and there'll be plenty of other people who didn't like him either plenty of people who thought actually no he was he he spoke a a view he expressed a view that a lot of people might share or recognize on other other matters he was certainly very uh forceful with politicians who went on the show and actually on the day that he left which was on the tuesday so that the day after we were dissecting the interview um on the show um it had its highest ratings and beats um its rival bbc breakfast um for the first time so he kind of feels like he's vindicated because he did what he intended to do which was raise his profile and it's um and his reputation and his viewing figures um but now he's gone as a result of what he said about some mega michael's uh interview um i suppose you know we've spoken about piers let's just give you his explanation yesterday or the day before no yesterday um or sometime this week after he left um for for why he said what he said so we're not repeating the allegation here that he doesn't believe megan but we this is his view about harry and megan more generally i believe in freedom of speech i believe in the right to be allowed to have an opinion uh if people want to believe meghan markle that's entirely their right i don't believe almost anything that comes out of her mouth and i think the damage she's done to the british monarchy and to the queen at a time when prince philip is lying in hospital is enormous and frankly contemptible so if i have to fall on my sword for expressing an honestly held opinion about meghan markle and that dire tribe of bilge that she came out with in that interview so we could probably extend this podcast by another two hours but were at risk of becoming as long as the interview itself um so it's on the itv hub if you're watching in the uk or listening in the uk it's still available to watch um i imagine more people than the 12 million that watched it are doing and just for context if you're listening or watching to this in america britain's a country with 60 65 million people 12 million people watched it as we said earlier half of all those watching tv on monday night um i think the american figures for cbs was something like 17 million i mean a huge amount of interest but i think you've got to say the view of the uk and the view of the royal family from abroad has been quite negatively impacted by this institute would you agree yeah i think i think so um and it would be interesting to see what harry and megan do next you know they've they've they've had their say now and they've got it all out there and hopefully got it all off their chest and can now go away and uh hopefully repair some relationships it will be interesting to see what they do i can't believe we got this fight i just reminded they can go away and they can tend to the chickens i can't believe we've got this far through the podcast we haven't mentioned the chickens the chicken coop the chicken coop um actually we have a listen to megan explaining where the chickens came from hi girls we put on our wellies to feed the hens megan and harry recently rescued from a factory farm i love your little designer house here archie's chicken oh how cute yeah so i rudely interrupt you on your wide appointment because i suddenly thought i can't believe we're about to end this podcast we haven't mentioned that they have chickens that they rescued from a battery farm so the chickens are obviously very happy chickens now i don't know whether they're just um egg laying chickens or whether they're chickens for the for the roasting pot in the future but we we didn't get to find out that information we didn't it was quite sweet actually on the on the chicken coop it said archie's chick in kick in yes um and also in that chicken coop was where they revealed that they got married three days before but we think we've worked out that didn't happen because you can't get married if it's not licensed and there aren't two witnesses even though the archbishop of canterbury the the head boy as it were of the church was there yeah i guess it was probably um rather than an official marriage it was maybe sort of a a blessing yeah okay so listen apologies there's probably a bit of the interview that you wanted us to discuss that we didn't um i think we would have been at risk of being here for a very long time indeed um but uh hopefully that was a useful fairly interesting remotely appropriate uh summary of what happened and our take on it if it isn't well you have to go and find someone else that was the best that we could do there'll be another uh another full take of it on sunday night won't they chris yeah actually if you're in the uk uh on sunday night on itv at 10 15 i believe and i haven't started working on it yet so you'll probably see a very tired looking uh reporter on it we are doing a documentary on the fallout of what happened this week with the royal family 10 15 itv sunday night i may or may not be there depending on whether i've fallen asleep [Music] you

Channel: ITV News

Views: 1,166,433

Keywords: The Royal Rota, The Royal Family, Meghan Markle, Prince Harry, Duchess of Sussex, Duke of Sussex, Oprah Winfrey, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge, Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Charles

Id: XcRcRkPgOs8

Length: 65min 43sec (3943 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 12 2021