The moment that the royal family have been anxiously waiting for ever since Meghan Markle and Prince Harry walked out on the pomp and circumstance of the royal family is finally upon us.
Yes, Meghan’s doing Oprah!
It was announced today that Meghan will sit down for a primetime interview with her friend Oprah Winfrey on CBS, to be aired on Sunday March 7 at 8pm, almost exactly a year after the couple moved to the U.S.
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Deadline reports that the interview will see Oprah speak with Meghan about everything from stepping into life as a royal, marriage, motherhood, her philanthropic work and how she is handling life under intense public pressure.
The palace will now be nervously wondering if Meghan will use the interview to settle scores by publicly calling out individuals in the royal family, or the ethos of the wider establishment itself.
The sympathetic biography Finding Freedom suggested that Harry and Meghan felt they were victims of snobbism and were disrespected and silenced when they were full-time working royals.
And the signs are that her anger and irritation at the palace’s intrusion into her life are far from fading: Meghan recently attacked the palace in a row over Archie’s birth certificate. She believes her name was changed on the document on the orders of the palace without her permission.
Deadline says that the two women will be joined in the second half of the broadcast by Prince Harry and the couple will speak about their move to the United States and their future hopes and dreams for their expanding family.
The revelation that the couple are to be interviewed by Oprah is the latest event pushing the Sussexes to the top of global news feeds: on Valentine’s Day the couple announced that they were having their second child, and last week Meghan won a dramatic victory over the Mail on Sunday when a judge agreed the paper had invaded Meghan’s privacy by publishing extracts from a deeply personal hand-written letter to her father.
The couple moved to the U.S. last year and have since signed lucrative deals with Netflix and Spotify.
However the potential of an explosive and revealing interview is likely to be giving the old hands at Buckingham Palace cold sweats, inevitably recalling the Panorama interview with Princess Diana. That interview massively eroded support for Prince Charles after she accused him of cheating on her throughout their marriage. Charles has struggled to recover from it ever since.
The last time Meghan and Harry gave an interview was when they were on tour in Africa just before they quit the royal family. That interview has come to be seen as foreshadowing their departure as Meghan spoke of her deep unhappiness.
ITV News reports that Meghan does plan to address issues surrounding the press coverage she has received since her relationship with Prince Harry was first revealed. Meghan called the Mail on Sunday’s coverage of her “illegal and dehumanizing” in a victory statement issued after the result.
Meghan met Oprah through a mutual friend, the CBS breakfast show host Gayle King. They live close to one another in Santa Barbara and Oprah recently referred to Meghan as “my neighbor ‘M’” after the Duchess sent her samples of a new coffee brand, Clevr Blends, that she had invested money in.
Oprah wrote “M” with a crown emoji.
Harry has already agreed to work with Oprah and Apple TV on a series about mental health, which was announced some time ago.