The royals are not complaining—or explaining.
Kate Middleton was given a standing ovation as she arrived at a keynote royal event Thursday evening, just 24 hours after she was dramatically named as one of the alleged “royal racists” who raised “concerns’ over “how dark” Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s children’s skin would be.
The show of support came as King Charles, who was named as the other person who allegedly asked questions about the children’s likely skin tone, took to the stage Friday morning to deliver a keynote speech at the COP28 climate conference in Dubai. Aides insisted he was “utterly focused” on the summit.
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There are also reports in the U.K. papers dismissing, once again, any suggestion that Charles might seek to strip Harry and Meghan of their titles. “That is just something that would not be considered,” sources told the Daily Mail’s Rebecca English.
It all adds up to a sense that the royals intend to tough out the crisis, which was triggered after a Dutch translation of Omid Scobie’s new book, Endgame, named Kate and Charles as the individuals referred to by Meghan in her interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2021, In that interview Meghan said there were “concerns and conversations about how dark [Archie’s] skin might be when he’s born.”
Royal sources told The Daily Beast the family would not be commenting on the allegations, despite a growing clamor for them to make a statement.
Sources suggest the palace will brush off demands for a statement along the lines of that issued by the queen after the Oprah interview, in which she famously said, “Some recollections may vary.”
They are likely to argue that the publication of the names in a now-pulped foreign language book, and allegedly included by accident, is a very different matter from Meghan and Harry themselves making allegations of racial bias in the Oprah interview: “It’s just another book” is a line that has already emerged as a palace response in some reports.
There is, however, evidence that the royals are starting to gear up for non-official responses, the Mirror, for example, reported the family was “united in outrage” and “banded together in their utter condemnation” of any suggestion that any royal family member would use racist language.
The revelations appear to have done little damage to Kate and the king’s standing in the U.K. so far, where Harry and Meghan are widely disliked and perceived by many as having betrayed the country. Indeed, the claims may end up generating sympathy for them.
Harry and Meghan’s camp, meanwhile, has told the Telegraph that Meghan, who named the pair in a letter she wrote to the king, has insisted the letter was not leaked to Scobie by her team.
Scobie appeared Thursday night on BBC Newsnight, where he reiterated that the names were not published intentionally.
