Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s Oprah Interview: A Complete Recap

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s interview with Oprah Winfrey aired on Sunday, March 7. And as the teasers suggested, the couple didn’t hold anything back. Winfrey was, obviously, correct: No topic was off-limits.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex talked about everything—why they decided to step back from their duties as senior members of the royal family, their relationship with the queen, the infamously brutal British tabloids, and much more. In the first few minutes, we learned the couple were not prepped ahead of time—when Oprah asked her questions, it would be the first time they’d have heard them—and they will not be getting paid for the interview. Markle also said she and Harry will reveal the gender of their second baby to Oprah during the sit-down.

Before a word was uttered, Markle’s beauty look alone could have predicted the tone of the interview. She opted for a dark eyeliner that was reminiscent of what Princess Diana wore for her now iconic interview with the BBC’s Martin Bashir in 1995. “Makeup is often an opportunity to reflect on the outside the way we feel inside,” founder of Beaumont Etiquette and royals expert Myka Meier told Glamour. “Also considered a groundbreaking interview, I’m not surprised to see Meghan’s choice of makeup to be bold and empowered, similar to Princess Diana’s during her Martin interview.”

The Duchess of Sussex also wore one of Princess Diana’s bracelets during the chat with Winfrey—another tie-in to the late royal who faced similar scrutiny from the British press. Prince Harry addressed the parallels between his wife and mother to Winfrey as well, saying at one point, “My biggest concern was history repeating itself.”

Speaking of Diana, Harry addressed what his late mother might say about everything he’s been through during the last few years. He said, “I think she would feel very angry with how this has panned out…but ultimately all she’d ever want is for us to be happy.”

That barely scratches the surface of what was covered during the two-hour interview. Below, a complete breakdown of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s conversation with Oprah Winfrey.

On the fanfare of the royal wedding:

“It was like having an out-of-body experience that I was very present for. The night before, I slept through the night entirely, which in and of itself is a little bit of a miracle,” Markle said.

“I just tried to make it fun and light and remind ourselves this was our day, but I think we were both aware even in advance of that this wasn’t ‘our’ day. This was a day that was planned for the world.”

Meghan says she never googled Harry.

“I will say I went into [this marriage] naively because I didn’t grow up knowing much about the royal family…. My mom even said to me a couple months ago, ‘Did Diana ever do an interview?’” Adding that “of course” she was aware of the royals, Markle said she didn’t do any research before her marriage. “I’ve never looked up my husband online,” she said. “Everything we thought I needed to know, he was telling me.” She also told Winfrey that she didn’t “fully understand” what it meant to be a working royal before her marriage.

Meghan had to curtsy when she met the queen for the first time.

“She was one of the first people I met. There wasn’t actually a huge formality the first time I met Her Majesty the Queen. We were going to lunch at Royal Lodge, which is where some of the other members of the family lived, specifically Andrew and Fergie and Eugenie and Beatrice. Eugenie and I had known each other before I knew Harry, so that was comfortable. It turned out the queen was finishing a church service there in Windsor, and she was going to be at the house. I remember Harry and I were in the car. He [was like, ‘My grandmother’s here, so you’re going to meet her.’ I said], ‘Oh, great. I loved my grandmother. I used to take care of her.’”

Then Prince Harry asked Markle if she knew how to curtsy. “I thought, genuinely, that was what happened outside. I thought that was part of the fanfare,” Markle said. “I didn’t know that’s what happens inside.” She said she’d replied to him, “But it’s your grandmother,” to which Prince Harry said, “It’s the queen.”

Later in the interview Meghan said of the queen: “She’s always been warm and inviting and really welcoming,” and revealed that she received a beautiful set of pearl earrings and a matching necklace from Harry’s grandmother.

Meghan and Harry had a secret wedding ceremony.

“Three days before our wedding, we got married,” Markle revealed. “Nobody knows that.” She and Harry called the Archbishop of Canterbury and told him that the royal wedding was a “spectacle” for the world—and they wanted an authentic ceremony with just the two of them in their backyard.

No, Meghan did not make Kate Middleton cry—it was the opposite.

The rumor that she made Kate Middleton cry was a “turning point,” Markle said. “The narrative with Kate, which didn’t happen, was really, really difficult. I think that’s when everything changed, really.” Markle never made Middleton cry. “The reverse happened,” Markle said. “I say that not to be disparaging to anyone because it was a really hard week [of the 2018 wedding], and she was upset about something. She owned it and she apologized, and she brought me flowers and a note apologizing. She did what I would do if I knew I hurt someone. To just take accountability for it…. I would’ve never wanted that to come out about her,” Markle continued. “Ever. Even though it had happened. I protected that from ever being out in the world.”

Markle said that a few days before the wedding, Middleton was upset about flower girl dresses, and it made Markle upset. “It really hurt my feelings,” Markle said. “I thought in the context of everything that was going on in those days leading to the wedding that it didn’t make sense to not just be doing what everyone else was doing, which was being supportive knowing what was going on with my dad and whatnot.”

Markle said she’s forgiven Middleton and has moved on, but “what was hard to get over was being blamed for something that not only I didn’t do, but that happened to me. And the people who were a part of our wedding going to our comms team and saying, ‘I know this didn’t happen.’”

On the conversation about Meghan being “different”:

“Well, I thought about it because they made me think about it,” she said of the media coverage. Now, upon reflection, she’s happy all of those things were true. “Thank God I had those life experiences…. I’ve always worked, I’ve always valued independence. I’ve always advocated for women’s rights.” The sad irony, she added, is that she’s always advocated for women but spent the last four years being silenced.

There were conversations about the skin color of Meghan and Harry’s firstborn.

“In those months when I was pregnant…[there were] concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he was born,” Meghan said, to Oprah’s visible shock. When asked who were having those conversations, she declined to reveal, saying, “I think that would be very damaging to them.”

Toward the end of the interview, Oprah asked Harry to elaborate on the verbiage used. “That conversation, I’m never going to share. But the timing was awkward; I was a bit shocked.” He added it “was right at the beginning, when [Meghan] wasn’t going to get security, when members of my family were suggesting that she carries on acting because there’s not enough money to pay for her. There were some real obvious signs before we got married that this was going to be really hard.”

Archie wasn’t ever going to be a prince—or receive security.

Markle said the palace didn’t want to make Archie a prince. “He wasn’t going receive security; this went on for the last few months of our pregnancy, where I’m going, ‘Hold on a second,’” Markle said. She remembered that when the palace made the decision, she thought, “He needs to be safe.” Winfrey asked Markle how she was told Archie wasn’t going to be a prince. “There’s no explanation,” she said. “It was a decision they felt was appropriate.” On whether Archie being called a prince was important to her, Markle said, “If it meant he was going to be safe, then of course. All the grandeur surrounding this stuff is an attachment I don’t personally have.”

Markle reveals she considered suicide.

Meghan said the media scrutiny got so bad that she wasn’t okay. “I was really ashamed to say it at the time and ashamed to have to admit it to Harry, especially because I know how much loss he’s suffered. But I knew that if I didn’t say it, that I would do it,” she said of self-harm. “I just didn’t want to be alive anymore, and that was a very clear and real and frightening constant thought.”

Markle told Oprah she approached to a senior member of the royal institution and said she needed to go somewhere to get help, but was told she couldn’t because it would be a bad look for the institution. “I share this because there are so many people who are afraid to voice that they need help,” she said. She even went to human resources—yes, the royal industrial complex has HR—but was told they couldn’t do anything for her because she wasn’t a paid member of the royal family. Of the suicidal thoughts, she said, “I thought it would have solved everything for everyone.”

One of Diana’s best friends ended up being a source of comfort, as she was one of the few people who truly knew what Meghan was going through. Meghan spoke of a night that she and Harry went to an event at the Royal Albert Hall—earlier that morning she had told Harry about her suicidal thoughts. When he suggested she miss the event, she told him, “I can’t be left alone.” In the photos from that night, she said, you can see how tightly he’s holding her hand to comfort her.

Harry on Meghan’s suicidal thoughts:

“I wasn’t prepared for that. I went to a very dark place as well. I wanted to be there for her.” He admits he didn’t go to family members to tell them Meghan needed help because he was ashamed of admitting it. He said the couple has some close friends who have been with them, but the family has the mentality that this life is just how it is. But for him, he said, the difference was “the race element”—it wasn’t just about Meghan as a person but what she represents for so many people. “The way that I saw it…there was an opportunity, many opportunities, for my family to show some public support.” For example, he said, over 70 members of Parliament called out the “colonial undertones” of the headlines written about Meghan; meanwhile, no members of his family ever said anything. “That hurts.”

On the gender of their second child:

Harry and Meghan reveal they’re having a baby girl. “Amazing,” Harry said. “Just grateful…to have a boy and then a girl, what more can you ask for? We’ve got our family.” They said they’re done after two kids. The baby is due this summer, the couple shared, and also said the plan is to only have two children.

On how Meghan thinks the palace will react to this interview:

“I’m not going to live my life in fear,” Markle said. “To answer your question, I don’t know how they could expect that after all of this time, we would still just be silent if there was an active role that The Firm is playing in perpetuating falsehoods about us. At a certain point, you’re going to go, ‘Guys, just tell the truth.’ If that comes with risk of losing things, there’s a lot that’s been lost already. I’ve lost my father. I lost a baby. I nearly lost my name.”

The couple lived in Tyler Perry’s house when they first moved to California.

The couple said it gave them breathing room while they found a home of their own–but more importantly, Perry had offered his security team. This was key because while Meghan and Harry were in Canada in early 2020, they were told with short notice that their U.K. security team would be removed.

Why Meghan and Harry walked away from their royal duties:

“It’s been so spun in the wrong direction as though we quit, we walked away,” Markle said. Prince Harry said, point blank, they left because they were asking for help and weren’t getting it. “We never left the family,” Markle said. “We said specifically, ‘We’re stepping back from senior roles to be just like several [other royals]’…. We weren’t reinventing the wheel here,” she said. “We were saying, ‘Okay, if this isn’t working for everyone. We’re in a lot of pain. You can’t provide us with the help that we need. We can just take a step back. We can do it in a Commonwealth country.’”

Prince Harry said he wanted to take a breath “from this constant barrage” of scrutiny. “My biggest concern was history repeating itself,” he said, referring to Princess Diana’s death. “And what I was seeing was history repeating itself, but far more dangerous because you add race and social media in.” He continued, “To receive no help at all and to be told continuously, ‘This is how it is. This is just how it is. We’ve all been through it,’” was frustrating.

Prince Harry said the simplest answer for why they left is “lack of support and lack of understanding,” stemming from both the U.K.’s tabloids’ vicious attacks and a lack of support from The Firm. The queen was blindsided by the decision, though, as she was rumored to be. “When we were in Canada, I had three conversations with my grandmother and two conversations with my father before he stopped taking my calls, and he said, ‘Can you put this all in writing, what your plan is?’”

There’s an “invisible contract” between the royal family and the press.

Harry told Oprah he understands why his family is scared of the tabloids turning on them. There’s an “invisible contract” behind closed doors—hinting that if certain family members wine, dine, and give access to the tabloids, they’ll get better press. He added that even though this exists, he wants everyone to give his family some compassion, because they’re “controlled” by a level of fear.

On the removal of security:

Harry said he never thought he would ever have his security team removed, so it was a shock when that happened in early 2020. Meghan added that she wrote a letter to Harry’s family members to say that she understands why she and Archie could no longer have security but to please keep Harry’s in place. And she was told that’s not possible.

Prince Harry says his family “cut him off” in the first quarter of 2020.

Harry revealed he has the financial resources that Princess Diana left him, and without that, they couldn’t have forged their own new life in L.A. “I’m just really relieved and happy to be sitting here, talking to you with my wife by my side because I can’t begin to imagine what it must’ve been like for [my mother] going through this process by herself all the years ago,” he said. “It’s been unbelievably tough on the two of us, but at least we have each other.”

On Prince Harry’s relationship with his family:

“I’ve spoken more to my grandmother in the last year than I have for many, many years.” Prince Harry said his father is taking his calls now. “There’s a lot to work through there,” he said. “I feel really let down because he’s been through something similar. He knows what pain feels like, and Archie’s his grandson. But at the same time, I will always love him. There’s a lot of hurt that’s happened, and I will continue to make it one of my priorities to try and heal that relationship. They only know what they know, and that’s the thing: I’ve tried to educate them through the process I have been educated.”

On Prince William:

“I love William to bits. He’s my brother; we’ve been through hell together, and have a shared experience. But we are on different paths.”

Do the couple have any regrets?

Harry said no, but Meghan revealed she does have one: believing The Firm when she was told she’d be protected. She closed by saying how grateful she is for her husband, however. “I think he saved all of us. He ultimately called it…. He made a decision that certainly saved my life and saved all of us.”

Originally Appeared on Glamour