What did Meghan and Harry say about the Royal Family in Oprah interview?
What the Duke and Duchess of Sussex told Oprah Winfrey in an extensive interview covering topics including race, royal titles and suicide.
Britain's royal family was facing a crisis on Monday after Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, rocked the institution with a serious of devastating allegations in their eagerly anticipated interview with Oprah Winfrey.
Over the course of the two-hour special, the couple painted a picture of a family stubbornly rooted in its ways that it left the young pair alone to fend off racist abuse and their own troubled mental health.
Update: The Queen responded in a statement on Tuesday evening, saying she was "concerned" and "saddened" by the revelations.
Didn't want to be alive anymore
Meghan revealed she was so isolated and lonely while working as a royal that she contemplated suicide, telling Oprah she "just didn't want to be alive anymore."
Meghan on the royal family, the Queen and senior staff:
"There’s the family, and then there’s the people that are running the institution. Those are two separate things and it’s important to be able to compartmentalise that, because the Queen, for example, has always been wonderful to me."
Considering suicide
Meghan on considering suicide:
"I just didn’t want to be alive any more. And that was a very clear and real and frightening, constant thought. And I remember how he [Harry] just cradled me."
Meghan on asking for help:
"I went to the institution and I said that I needed to go somewhere to get help … And I was told that I couldn’t, that it wouldn’t be good for the institution.
I remember this conversation like it was yesterday, because 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."
Harry: "I was trapped"
Harry on royals being ‘trapped’ and the issue of race:
"I was trapped but I didn’t know I was trapped. Like the rest of my family are, my father and my brother, they are trapped. They don’t get to leave and I have huge compassion for that.
"For the family, they very much have this mentality of: 'This is just how it is. This is how it’s meant to be. You can’t change it. We’ve all been through it.'
"What was different for me was the race element, because now it wasn’t just about her. It was about what she represented."
Harry on the Queen, and whether he had “blindsided” her with the couple’s decision to step away from royal roles and where the story came from:
"I’ve never blindsided my grandmother. I have too much respect for her.
I’d hazard a guess that it probably could have come from within the institution."
Harry on Prince Charles not taking his calls after initial discussions about stepping away:
"I had three conversations with my grandmother, and two conversations with my father before he stopped taking my calls. And then he said: 'Can you put this all in writing?'
"By that point I took matters into my own hands. It was like, I needed 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 and for Archie’s as well."