Buckingham Palace remained silent on Tuesday morning as the world responded to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey.
Prince Charles was asked his opinion on a visit to a pop-up COVID-19 vaccination site in London, but did not respond when criticism of the Royal Family’s handling of race and mental health exploded after the allegations of Prince Harry and Meghan.
As for the queen, the monarch has reportedly been in crisis meetings about how the interview should be handled.
“Buckingham Palace will not be shocked,” said Roya Nikkhah, a royal correspondent for The Sunday Times. The Queen, the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Cambridge and other high-ranking royals are now huddled together, discussing with assistants how best to respond. They want to take their time. ‘
Nikkhah, who has covered the royal family for more than a decade, said on “CBS This Morning” on Tuesday that the interview was “certainly a crisis” for the British monarchy.
“That interview, and I’ve seen it twice now, has raised many more questions than answers,” she said.
Damning claims from the interview include the Duchess of Sussex, then pregnant with it baby Archie, who reportedly approached the palace’s HR department with suicidal thoughts and asked for mental health care, but was turned down for fear of the image it would convey.
“I said I’ve never felt like this before and I have somewhere to go,” Meghan told Winfrey. “And I was told I couldn’t, that it wouldn’t be good for the institution.”
The couple said a member of the royal family commented on the race of their then-unborn son, with “concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he is born.”
They also said race played a role in the way Meghan was treated by the Palace institution and the British press.
“I think the allegations and allegations and statements made by Harry and Meghan paint a picture of a royal family with some areas that are difficult – very difficult things to tackle,” Nikkhah said.
When asked who was talking about their son’s skin color, both Harry and Meghan declined to name names. However, the prince told Winfrey he did not been the queen, nor Prince Philip, who is currently hospitalized at the age of 99.
Nikkhah said the palace probably wouldn’t give details on the topic either.
“I don’t think that’s going to be part of Buckingham Palace’s response,” she said. “I think it will be broader themes that have emerged from that interview … and maybe straighten some things out.”
However, she added that it was a major allegation that the palace would want to take “extremely seriously.”
Harry’s father, who only looked at the reporter who asked him about the interview before walking away, is “devastated” by his son’s statements to Winfrey, Nikkhah said.
“Those comments will no doubt change the nature of Harry’s relationship with the Prince of Wales, his father and the rest of the family,” she said.
And while both Harry and Meghan seemed careful to speak only positively of Queen Elizabeth during the two-hour program, Nikkhah said Harry’s comments in previously unaired clips shown on “CBS This Morning” Monday placed her “also in the shooting range.”
In the clip, Harry Winfrey explains that he and Meghan were invited to stay with the Queen on her estate in Sandringham. However, when they arrived in London, Harry was informed by his secretary that the Queen’s schedule was full, according to her own personal assistant.
In addition, Nikkhah said that the criticism of the royal family in general would also have reflected badly on the monarch.
“When you make statements like this about the royal family, the queen is the head of that family, and you’re also making pot shots at the queen,” she said.
Despite the palace’s current silence, viewers in the UK have not been shy about forming their views on the interview – and Nikkhah says it is “extremely divisive”.
“I just saw the results of a poll that just appeared here showing that a lot of young people here support Harry and Meghan during that interview,” she said. “And the older people are now firmly behind the monarchy.”