Harry and Meghan, the inconvenient truth

For almost a week their voices — angry, entitled, vengeful and bitter — have echoed over the airwaves. And in their wake has come the sound and fury of recrimination.

Across the globe, the Harry and Meghan interview has divided families, communities and even nations. Its fallout has been greater than anyone could have imagined. We have been bisected by race, by gender and by age.

The viewing figures alone are staggering: a television audience of 50 million so far — a number that is still growing.

At its heart, conducting it all, was Oprah Winfrey, whose own worldwide profile comes close to rivalling, possibly even eclipsing, that of Prince Harry and his wife. 

A self-made billionaire, she is the most successful — and richest — media star on the planet.

Hugely respected, compassionate and possessing a credibility unmatched by any other broadcaster, she is America’s royalty.

But with that authority and that status come obligations. When the claims come as thick and fast as they did from Harry and Meghan, it is hard to keep up. But due to their gravity, every single one must be challenged.

Regrettably, that did not happen last Sunday night. Claims went untested, troubling allegations based on second-hand conversations were undisputed, and interpretations left unopposed and therefore accepted as the truth.

Gripping television it may have been, as Harry set about his family with an at times cold and ruthless detachment, but viewers were entitled to ask — and to expect — that these assertions would be questioned.

In the space of almost 90 minutes the reputations of the monarchy and of individual Royal Family members were dismantled.

Yet even the most egregious of the couple’s inflammatory remarks, such as those about racism, were allowed to escape serious scrutiny.

It is hard to imagine a Dimbleby, a Paxman or a Humphrys allowing so many damaging statements to pass without drilling down to find context and perspective.

By any stretch of the imagination, the Harry and Meghan claims demanded to be properly and thoroughly investigated.

Here, the Mail lays bare the contradictions and inaccuracies at the heart of their interview, untangling fact from fiction.

And today we appeal to U.S. broadcaster CBS and Oprah Winfrey herself: based on our report, can we now look forward to a follow-up — Harry & Meghan . . . The Other Side Of The Story?

Tears over flower girls

Six months after the 2018 royal wedding, reports began to emerge that Meghan had made Kate cry following a fitting for the bridesmaids’ dresses (Princess Charlotte was one of Meghan’s six bridesmaids).

But Meghan claims that, in reality, ‘the reverse happened’, telling Oprah that she was the one who had been reduced to tears, not Kate. In her interview, she claimed Kate had subsequently said sorry for the incident, too.

‘It was a really hard week of the wedding. And she was upset about something, but she owned it, and she apologised. 

And she brought me flowers and a note, apologising. And she did what I would do if I knew that I hurt someone, right, to just take accountability for it.’

Intriguingly, The Times this week shed further light on the episode, reporting that the day after the incident, the Duchess of Cambridge had indeed taken a bunch flowers to Nottingham Cottage, Harry and Meghan’s home at Kensington Palace at the time, as a peace offering.

According to the newspaper, Meghan then slammed the door in her future sister-in-law’s face. 

If that’s true, one can safely assume that both she and Kate were hugely upset. It’s therefore perfectly possible that both cried.

However, a third scenario is presented by perhaps the most compelling source of all: Meghan’s pet journalist, Omid Scobie. 

In his biography Finding Freedom, published with Meghan’s apparent approval, he confidently declared that no one had cried, saying: ‘There were no tears from anyone.’

The ‘pre-wedding’ that wasn’t 

According to Harry and Meghan, the star-studded wedding watched by the world — and which British taxpayers funded to the tune of more than £30 million — was an expensive sham.

Instead, they told a slack-jawed Oprah that they’d actually plighted their troth in a secret ceremony 72 hours earlier.

‘Three days before our wedding, we got married,’ Meghan claimed. ‘No one knows that. But we called the Archbishop, and we just said: ‘Look, this thing, this spectacle is for the world, but we want our union between us.’

‘So, like, the vows that we have framed in our room are just the two of us in our backyard with the Archbishop of Canterbury.’ Harry added, singing: ‘Just the three of us!’

It was quite the revelation. But if there really were just ‘three’ people present, then a legal wedding can’t actually have happened.

This is because the law dictates that anyone marrying in England needs two witnesses, as well as the person officiating. In other words, at least five people must be there.

Furthermore, if what Harry and Meghan told Oprah was true, it follows that the Archbishop of Canterbury, the man in charge of the worldwide Anglican communion, had not only broken the law, but then presided over a fake royal wedding at St George’s Chapel, at Windsor Castle, on May 19, 2018, in the presence of the groom’s grandmother, the Queen, who is the titular head of the Church of England.

This didn’t happen, according to the Special Licences Section of the Office of the Archbishop, which commented this week: ‘A special licence was issued for the marriage in St George’s.’

So what really happened in the couple’s ‘backyard’? According to an informed source at Lambeth Palace, the episode Meghan refers to was actually a ‘rehearsal’ of the wedding ceremony, during which — as is normal — the couple went through their wedding vows.

At its conclusion the archbishop, Justin Welby, also blessed the couple. What he did not do was marry them.

Sibling she hasn’t seen for 18 years? 

Asked about her half-sister Samantha Markle, her father’s daughter by his first marriage, who has penned a tell-all book, Meghan responds: ‘I think it would be very hard to tell all when you don’t know me.’

She said she had grown up as an only child and had last seen her sibling, ’18, 19 years ago . . . and ten years before that’.

Not true, says Samantha, who has been a persistent critic of her sister, citing this graduation picture of the two of them, which she says was taken in 2008.

‘We’ve got photographs over a lifespan of us together. So how can she not know me?’

Samantha also dismissed Meghan’s claim that her half-sister had changed her name back to Markle — her married name was Grant — only after Harry arrived on the scene. Samantha says the name change was in 1997 — and she has the certificate to prove it.

Let’s get the story straight

Staff DID fight for them   

Whatever took place during the wedding dispute, Meghan appears to have been hugely upset that the claim she’d ‘made Kate cry’ ended up in print.

She told Oprah that she found it ‘hard to get over’ the Palace’s failure to then put her version of events on the record.

Later, she elaborated: ‘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.’

It’s unclear (because Oprah failed to ask) who exactly these ‘liars’ were. Or what ‘lies’ they supposedly told.

However, convention would have made it impossible for royal press officers to make any comment on what was a deeply personal (and private) incident in which basic facts were likely to be in dispute.

As an insider told us: ‘There were clearly two versions of the same event. Whatever the institution said would only draw more attention to it.’

Palace press officers are, of course, public servants. Unlike Hollywood PR agents, they cannot — and should not — contest every single false rumour.

Conveniently ignored by Meghan in this whole rumpus is the fact that Palace spin-doctors did indeed go to war on her behalf on several high-profile occasions, knocking down many stories that were put to them (and were not published as a result).

Notably, they formally denied stories about her alleged extravagance in the refurbishment of Frogmore Cottage. They also brought two cases to the Press regulator, Ipso, on the Sussexes’ behalf, winning one and losing the other.

The truth about royal protocol and princes

When their son was born, Harry and Meghan chose not take up his courtesy title, the Earl of Dumbarton. Neither would he be called ‘Lord Archie’, the established form for the son of a Duke. Instead, plain old ‘Archie’ would do.

According to their biographer and favoured journalist Omid Scobie, this was ‘all part of giving him as normal a life as possible’.

That was the story, at least. But behind the scenes, it turns out that the issue was, in fact, the subject of a furious dispute.

Meghan — who elsewhere in her interview with Oprah had insisted she wasn’t much bothered about titles — complained that ‘they’ (by which she appeared to mean Palace officials) ‘didn’t want him to be a Prince or Princess’.

Viewers were told that this supposed snub was delivered around the same time as ‘conversations about how dark his skin might be’.

In other words, Meghan appeared to be suggesting that it was racially motivated.

In fact, royal protocol dictates that the great-grandchild of a monarch does not normally become a Prince until their grandparent takes the throne. 

Later in the interview, Meghan seems belatedly to acknowledge this fact, saying: ‘There’s a convention . . . I forget if it was a George V or George VI convention, that when you’re the grandchild of the monarch — so when Harry’s dad becomes king — automatically Archie and our next baby would become Prince or Princess.’

However, she then claims plans are afoot to ‘change the convention for Archie’.

Indeed, Prince Charles is thought to be in favour of a slimmed-down monarchy, with fewer princes and princesses. But this shift pre-dates Harry’s marriage and has nothing to do with race.

Archie’s ‘dark skin’: their different accounts

Harry and Meghan told Oprah at least one member of the Royal Family had expressed concern about ‘how dark’ their unborn baby’s skin might be.

It’s an explosive claim. And while they were unwilling to identify the individual involved, or reveal exactly what they are supposed to have said, the ensuing row has dominated this week’s news.

Meghan was adamant questions about Archie’s complexion were motivated by ugly racism. At one point, Oprah put to her the leading question that: ‘Because they were concerned that if he were too brown, that would be a problem? Are you saying that?’

Meghan responded: ‘If that’s the assumption you are making, I think that feels like a pretty safe one.’ It was also suggested that his skin colour was linked to decisions made about security.

Buckingham Palace has sought to defuse hostilities by noting that ‘recollections’ of what occurred ‘may vary’.

That is a fair point, given the somewhat strange fact that two very different versions of events were presented to Oprah — by Harry and Meghan respectively — during their interview.

Meghan claimed there were ‘several conversations’ about Archie’s skin colour which took place ‘in those months when I was pregnant’.

But Harry said there was just one conversation ‘right at the beginning . . . before we even got married’.

A more forensic interviewer than Oprah might have queried this inconsistency. For while Harry and Meghan were ‘speaking their truth’, they can’t both have been right.

Therapy for Harry – but not Meghan? 

Meghan told Oprah she had begged in vain for the Palace to help when she found herself having ‘suicidal thoughts’ and concluding that she ‘just didn’t want to be alive any more’.

‘I went to the institution, and I said that I needed to go somewhere to get help,’ she claimed. ‘ . . .I was told that I couldn’t, that it wouldn’t be good for the institution . . . And so I went to human resources, and I said: ‘I just really, I need help.’ Because in my old job, there was a union, and they would protect me.

‘They said: ‘My heart goes out to you, because I see how bad it is, but there’s nothing we can do . . . because you’re not a paid employee of the institution.’

‘This was emails and begging for help, saying very specifically: ‘I am concerned for my mental welfare.’

‘And people going: ‘Oh, yes, yes, it’s disproportionately terrible what we see out there to anyone else.’ But nothing was ever done.’

When Oprah asked if she had thought about checking in to a hospital, Meghan replied: ‘ . . . that’s what I was asking to do . . . you can’t do that. I couldn’t, you know, call an Uber to the Palace.’ 

Oddly, Meghan was not asked why she had gone to HR, who look after Palace employees (not members of the Royal Family), instead of seeking advice from the royal doctors.

Even more curious were Harry’s remarks. He told Oprah he was ‘ashamed’ of admitting to his family that Meghan needed help, ‘had no idea what to do’ and ‘didn’t have anyone to turn to’. 

Yet Harry has suffered his own mental health crises. He has spoken of how, as an adult, he needed therapy to process his grief over the death of his mother.

He has also been a passionate advocate for the mental health charity Heads Together. So it is curious that he did not advise his wife to take the same path he had once followed. 

Trips she DID escape home for   

Meghan told Oprah ‘The Firm’ attempted to keep her under effective house arrest.

Things got to the stage, she alleged, when she said: ‘I’ve left the house twice in four months.’

A striking claim. But does it hold water? 

There is no official record of her social activities, but on the work front, the Court Circular records Meghan’s attendance at official engagements on 73 days in the 17 months between her wedding and the couple’s departure for Canada. 

Of those days, at least 65 involved leaving her home. There are just two apparent gaps in this hectic schedule, both in 2019: from March 22 to July 6; and from July 14 to September 23.

The first period includes the run-up to Archie’s birth, when she travelled to hospital on May 6, plus at least four private outings: to Windsor Castle on May 8, Trooping the Colour and a baseball game in London in June (above right), and Wimbledon on July 4 (left).

In the second period, Meghan managed to holiday abroad four times: in Italy, France, Ibiza and the U.S. 

In short, there doesn’t appear to be any ‘four-month’ period when she only left the house twice.

No delay exposing these snaps

Meghan said the Press had ‘created’ news about her father Thomas Markle and suggested she had ‘lost’ her father for ever as a result of the wrangles.

Speaking about Mr Markle’s notorious collaboration with paparazzi photographers, she claimed: ‘The tabloids had apparently known for a month or so [about the staged pictures] and decided to hold until the Sunday before our wedding because they wanted to create drama, which is also a key point in all this; they don’t report the news — they create the news.’

At no stage did Oprah test these claims. If she had done so, she would have discovered a very different version of events. One in which the facts are far more compelling.

It began during the last week of March 2018, when photographs of Mr Markle began to appear in British newspapers. They had been taken in the Mexican border town of Rosarito, where the former Hollywood lighting director lives in retirement.

The pictures showed Mr Markle, who until this point had said very little about his daughter’s forthcoming wedding, studying a book called Images Of Britain. The inference was clear: he was reading up on his daughter’s new home country.

The following month, two further sets of photos were published. They showed the portly American working out with weights and being measured up by a tailor. 

These, it was reported, were proof that Mr Markle was not just getting in shape for his role as father of the bride but was also having a wedding suit made.

In all of them he appeared to be unaware the photographs were being taken.

One further picture emerged in early May, of Meghan’s father apparently in an internet cafe looking at online stories about his daughter and future son-in-law. 

They emerged despite Kensington Palace warning publishers to respect Mr Markle’s privacy and claiming he had been ‘harassed’ by the paparazzi.

But by now alarm bells were beginning to sound about the pictures and how they had been obtained. The Mail on Sunday suspected they had been set up, and secured CCTV footage from the internet cafe showing Mr Markle and a photographer together.

Here was proof that the two had collaborated. And, importantly, it seemed to undermine the Palace’s official line. That footage was secured on May 12 and published within 24 hours.

Far from ‘sitting’ on the story, the paper published it immediately.

Trapped? Passport WAS used 

The day Meghan joined the Royal Family was, she claimed, ‘the last time, until we came here, that I saw my passport, my driver’s licence, my keys. All that gets turned over’.

Oprah responded to this revelation by depicting her as a sort of UK version of the incarcerated Dubai Princess Latifah: ‘The way you’re describing this . . . it’s like you were trapped,’ she said. ‘ . . .that would be an accurate interpretation, yes?’

Meghan responded: ‘That’s the truth.’

It was a very odd form of imprisonment then. For in the six months after her wedding, Meghan was able to use that passport to take at least four foreign holidays, in addition to official tours, visiting Italy, Canada, and Amsterdam, as well as embarking on a lengthy honeymoon. 

In 2019, she visited Ibiza, France (staying chez Elton John), Italy (again) and New York twice: once for a lavish baby shower, and again to see her chum Serena Williams play in the U.S. Open.

Those were just the private jaunts. She also travelled on official business to South Africa, Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, Ireland, Germany and Morocco.

2018 Megxit plans

When, exactly, did Harry and Meghan decide to leave Britain? It’s as clear as mud.

At one point, Meghan told Oprah she entered the royal fold intending to devote her life to service: ‘Our plan was to do this for ever,’ she said. ‘I wrote letters to his family saying: ‘I am dedicated to this. Use me as you’d like.’ ‘

Yet later in the interview, the couple were asked whether the Queen had been ‘blindsided’ by their January 2020 decision to quit.

‘I’ve never blindsided my grandmother,’ Harry insisted. ‘I have too much respect for her.’

Meghan then added: ‘So I remember when you talked to her several times about this [Megxit] over . . .’

Harry: ‘Two years.’

That suggests they actually began planning to withdraw from full-time royal duties in early January 2018, some four months before they were even married. It is tricky to reconcile this with Meghan’s earlier statement.

Elsewhere, Meghan suggested the couple were discriminated against when the Queen refused to allow them to combine paid work with occasional royal duties, claiming ‘several’ family members enjoy this privilege.

‘I can think of so many — they’re Royal Highnesses — who earn a living . . . and can support the Queen if and when called upon.’

There are, in fact, only four minor royals who combine (part-time) duties with paid work: Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, and Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie.

What holiday parties at the Palace?

The couple said the Royal Family had an ‘invisible contract’, behind closed doors’ with the British Press and throws parties to keep them on side.

Prince Harry said: ‘To simplify it . . . if you as a family member are willing to wine, dine and give full access to these reporters, then you will get better press.’

Meghan described how tabloid newspapers were invited to ‘holiday parties at the Palace’.

This was perhaps the most bizarre of the couple’s claims. Again, they do not provide a shred of evidence.

So let us be clear: royals do not personally entertain journalists. 

And the only ‘holiday parties’ are occasional receptions given by the various households’ communications teams and an annual cocktail party to mark the official opening to the public of Buckingham Palace.

It is true that royals are sometimes present at these events, but it requires an astonishing leap of imagination to conclude that these are personal invitations from individual family members. They are not.