Matt Katz: Last night, Oprah's highly-anticipated interview with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry about their decision to leave the royal family last year aired on CBS.

Meghan Markle: When I was pregnant, all around this same time, so we have in tandem the conversation of you won't be given security, it's not going to be given a title, and also concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he's born.

Matt: Markle faced harsh criticism even before the interview ran because of accusations of bullying and the timing of the interviews release, and 99-year-old patriarch Prince Philip is currently still in the hospital following a heart procedure. But Meghan and Harry spend most of the discussion giving their side of the tabloid stories that have circulated, and they revealed some shocking details. They allege that there were royal conversations about how dark their child's skin would be, rifts within the family, and even mental health issues Meghan struggled with. Here with us to discuss all of this is Kristen Meinzer, a royal watcher, podcaster, and author of How To Be Fine. Kristen, welcome.

Kristen Meinzer: Hi, Matt.

Matt: All right, Kristen. I just first want to get your overall reaction to the interview yesterday and if there was anything that surprised you more than anything else.

Kristen: Oh my gosh. There's so much to say about this interview. I think what I was mostly surprised by was how forthcoming Meghan and Harry were about all sorts of things that normally they would have to be buttoned up about. For example, I didn't expect either of them to name names at any point. Meghan, very early on in the interview actually set the record straight about something with her sister-in-law, Kate, and I wasn't expecting that. Yes, I absolutely was surprised at many moments and I even cried watching some of this.

Matt: What touched you? What made you cry or upset you?

Kristen: Well, I think that we all knew that Meghan was going through a very tough time there. She was being attacked with racist media stories, misogynistic media stories. We know that she wasn't being protected. We know the firm was not setting the record straight. When I say the firm, I mean the business side of the royal family was not setting the record straight. I think that was obvious from the outside, but we had no idea of how unprotected she felt, how lonely she felt, how much they were keeping her behind palace walls all the time, and we had no idea that she was suicidal.

She talks very frankly about that, how she thought things would be better if she just weren't alive anymore. Fortunately, Harry provided solace for her. She leaned on one of Princess Diana's old friends, but when she went to the firm, they refused to help her. They said it would not be a good look.

Matt: They refuse to help her like getting her mental health treatment or anything of the like, right?

Kristen: Yes, exactly.

Matt: Specifically as it relates to racist treatment, which is something that came up again and again in this interview. For Meghan as a woman of mixed-race background, what revelations did she and Harry reveal about how the palace treated her because of her race?

Kristen: There were some big bombshells in there. Mostly, Harry said that he had some learning to do about race, because it's one thing to read about race or to have friends of color, but to be married to Meghan and to be the father now of a child of color, he had a lot of learning to do and he said his family is not really up on all of that learning. One example they gave is that the whole family, or the firm I should say, was very concerned about what color will Archie's skin be when he's born? There were major concerns. What will it look like? What will people think?

What if he's too dark? They didn't say that directly to Meghan, but Harry confirmed they made that clear to him, and they would not name names of who specifically was voicing those concerns, but those concerns were very real.

Matt: You said earlier that Meghan set the record straight about her and what she's had to deal with and what the major story was about her sister-in-law. Can you explain a little bit about that, what that story was about and how she set the record straight?

Kristen: Well, there have been a number of stories in the UK tabloid press trying to pit these two women against each other because tabloids love a story where one person gets to be the hero and one gets to be the villain, and they've often set Meghan up as the villain. One story that got repeated over and over and over again was that Meghan, in the lead up to her wedding was a bridezilla. That she made Kate cry, that she was being a tyrant about the bridesmaids' dresses.

That was repeated in so many outlets and Meghan set the record straight and said it was actually the other way around, but Kate was very apologetic. Kate sent me flowers and a note. She did all the things I would have done if I hurt someone's feelings and I forgave her. I don't think that Kate would necessarily want this falsehood out there, but it never got corrected, so she corrected it herself last night.

Matt: Who were they blaming here for both the racism that they felt subtly and not so subtly, and then the misinformation, the disinformation that showed up in the British tabloids. They repeated the fact that they have a good relationship with the queen. Both of them said that repeatedly, that all is good with the queen, but it's the firm, the institution, the palace, that were often blamed. But the queen runs the palace, right or not? I was a little struck by that watching. I'm like, wait, whose fault is this really?

Kristen: Well, we have to also keep in mind, there's a difference between the family and the firm. The family is who you get together with on the holidays and open presents with and so on. The firm is the company. It's the PR image. It is everything that you see when they're on the balcony waving at the crowds, and the firm is more than just the queen.

As far as the firm perpetuating the racist news coverage and so on. They were not issuing corrections when they could have. 70 MPs actually said that the misogynistic and racist treatment of Meghan should stop now. It is unacceptable. Even members of the government were speaking out about this, and why won't the firm? When you ask whose fault is it that this continued, a lot of it is the firm and their decision not to set the record straight. They would set the record straight on very minor stories, very inconsequential ones, but they wouldn't set the story straight on stories that threw Meghan under the bus or stories that were outright racist. They could have but they didn't, and Harry made it very clear. It's because the royal family is actually afraid of the press.

Matt: Who makes that decision then if not the queen about what stories to push back on, how to how to handle the PR? Are you indicating that there's almost like a bureaucracy, like a deep state, if you will, within the palace that almost has more control than the queen, at least when it comes to managing the family's public image?

Kristen: Well, remember, it's not just the Queen here we have the future king, her son Charles, we have the next future king, William, and Harry made it very clear in the interview, at one point, Charles stopped taking his phone calls and things are very rough between the two right now. They're working very hard right now, William and Harry, to eventually be close again, but right now they're not close.

Matt: Explain to us the situation with the finances and how Harry talked about how his security was suddenly cut off.

Kristen: Yes, so they were cut off over a year ago in early 2020. Harry said very pointedly, he had no dreams of being a media superstar. He had no plans of making a deal with Netflix or with Spotify. A lot of the tabloids, they print that story and say, "Look, Meghan and Harry were opportunistic all along. They just wanted to be celebrities." But Harry made clear, we only made those deals because we were caught off financially.

There was no security team for us and everybody knew where we lived because the tabloids kept printing it and we have a baby here. We need protection and how are we going to pay for that security? So they took those Netflix deals, the Spotify deal and so on, but also Harry made very clear, I had to rely heavily on my inheritance from my mother and sometimes I think maybe my mother knew what was going to happen. That was a very touching part of the interview.

Matt: Yes, it was quite chilling really. What do you make of the Princess Diana situation and her life and the end of her life, and then any similarities to this situation.

Kristen: There are so many similarities. The feeling of being constantly chased, of being trapped, the admissions of mental anguish that both Harry and Meghan expressed in this interview. Both of them felt a great deal of anguish. Harry said himself that he did not want history repeating itself, and we know what happened to Princess Diana. Obviously, he didn't want that to happen to his wife too. There were a lot of echoes of that very famous interview that Princess Diana gave in 1995. I felt the echoes for that and I just hope that these two have a much better outcome than Diana did.

Matt: Even for non-royal families, a lot of our listeners might be able to relate to parts of this story about family expectations and the feeling of belonging when you marry into a family and then the tears that can sometimes happen around weddings over things like bridesmaid dresses. I'm wondering what sort of larger themes you might have seen? How did this interview explore just basic family dynamics and what it's like to navigate a life on your own terms when you're starting out and creating your own family?

Kristen: Yes, I mean, it was kind of like a lot of those dynamics turned up to 11 if you're new in-laws were actually a corporation and not just individuals. I kind of feel like it was like that actually. There's absolutely references in the Oprah interview to what members of family were most welcoming. They were very, very, very welcomed by the queen from the get-go. Which family members maybe a little bit less so as time went on. I was very relieved to hear that most of the family was incredibly welcoming to Meghan in the beginning.

As things went on, it sounds like the queen continued to be the most welcoming, and the other members of the family less so. I think we all know families like that where maybe there's one member of the family that does their best to make sure you're feeling okay and comfortable and welcome and then maybe some other people are not.

Matt: What came of the allegations that Meghan Markle bullied her staff at the palace and were those allegations addressed at all last night?

Kristen: No, that was not discussed. Let's remember those allegations did not come out until it was announced that the Oprah interview was going to happen. The Oprah interview was taped about a month ago, I believe. This was, in some people's opinions, an attempt by the press or by the royal family to take attention away from Megan and Harry's story or to damage their legitimacy, but no, that was not addressed. What was addressed was that there were a lot of stories that were probably coming from inside the palace.

Matt: You yourself have brushed up against racism in British media firsthand. I want to play a clip of you being interviewed by Piers Morgan on Good Morning Britain.

Kristen: Calling Meghan Markle straight out of Compton, which is clearly trying to make an allusion to her being a gangster and very specifically a Black gangster.

Piers Morgan: No, it wasn't. No, it wasn't. It wasn't that [unintelligible 00:11:43]

Kristen: Yes, it was. It absolutely was-

Piers: Did you read the whole article?

Kristen: - and then also were the headlines that were comparing her to a jihadist. Why would she be a jihadist because she was working on a charitable cookbook? That is racist. That is unacceptable and who would not want to escape that abuse, Piers?

Piers: Well, I'm sure we're going to hear all this when we see the Oprah Winfrey. It'll all be skewed.

Matt: Kristen, can you explain what happened there?

Kristen: [laughs] Yes, that was a good time. Piers Morgan asked me to give very specific examples of racism. I want to note, I am a woman of color and he was asking me, a woman of color, to give examples of racism against a woman of color, Megan Markle, fellow American. As I tried to explain that to him and give very clear examples, he talked over me the whole time so you could barely hear what I was saying. I would say that is pretty racist. Ask a woman of color to explain some racist examples and then talk over her the whole time.

Matt: So interesting. You have a woman from the United States, a woman with both black and white background, becoming a princess in the UK, and then through her, we're getting a sense of racism in the media and the culture in the UK, right?

Kristen: Well, I really don't want to say it's the entire UK. We certainly have our issues and challenges with racism right here at home, but I would say that the UK tabloid press certainly has challenges here and the royal family does.

Matt: I wanted to ask you just the overall picture about the monarchy itself before I let you go. There are some critics who question why we even still have or why Britain still has this monarchy at all. Do you think this increased spotlight on the royal family is making people question the existence of the monarchy itself more so than they would have previously?

Kristen: Yes, absolutely. I can see it all over the twitterverse, on social media. So many people that I follow in the world right now are essentially saying, why do we need this and what is the point? I've heard this before. I've been covering the royals now for over 10 years and I've heard it over and over again, like, "They're being paid tax dollars to live in castles," and so on. I think that this conversation with Meghan and Harry pushed things further because it's not just that they're living off of tax dollars and castles and wearing billions of dollars of jewelry and whatnot. It's that they're hurting people on the inside, and I think that is going to really ruffle a lot of feathers.

Matt: Kristen Meinzer is a podcaster, royal watcher, and author of How To Be Fine. Kristen, thank you so much for watching this for us and giving us a breakdown. Appreciate it.

Kristen: Thank you so much, Matt.

Copyright © 2021 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.