A star BBC interviewer who was accused by Meghan Markle of conducting an “orchestrated” interview with her and Prince Harry to mark their engagement has hit back at Meghan’s claims.
“When the Duchess of Sussex said that my engagement interview with her and Harry was an ‘orchestrated reality show’ I didn’t know what to make of it,” Mishal Husain writes in the August issue of Saga magazine, according to a report by the Daily Mail’s Richard Eden. “They seemed to have thought through what their new lives would be like and what marriage would mean for her life in particular.”
Husain adds that there was no hint of the trouble to come. “There was nothing that pointed to what would happen,” she says. “It was two people who were full of joy in each other and life.”
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Meghan made the allegation in her and Harry’s Netflix show, which more broadly alleged that the media and the Palace conspired against the couple, who stepped back as senior royals in March 2020 and now live in California with their two young children, Archie and Lilibet.
Harry at one point claimed that royal correspondents were “essentially an extended PR arm of the royal family,” and said this was the result of “an agreement that has been there for over 30 years.”
Harry made clear that he loathes the media who, he said, see his trauma as their “narrative to control.”
Meghan described the BBC interview scheduled to mark the engagement as an “orchestrated reality show,” adding: “We weren’t allowed to tell our story... it was, you know, rehearsed.”
The BBC rejected the allegation that the interview was “rehearsed” as “simply untrue.”
Husain herself said in response at the time, somewhat wryly: “We know recollections may vary on this particular subject.”
The late Queen Elizabeth used the same phrase in a statement after Harry and Meghan’s bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey. It later emerged that Kate Middleton insisted the phrase be used after Meghan alleged a member of the royal family had raised “concerns” about the likely color of their unborn children’s skin.
