Meghan Markle Told King Charles About Royal Racism: Report

It was a revelation that took viewers’ breath away: during 2021’s interview special, Oprah With Meghan and Harry, Meghan Markle made a bombshell claim while her husband, Prince Harry, waited in the wings. Speaking with Oprah Winfrey, the Duchess of Sussex said that members of the royal household expressed concerns about the skin color of her unborn son, Archie. Now a new book about the royals claims that, Markle told King Charles III the names of the royal household members who made those remarks—but repercussions of that revelation remain unclear.

Markle’s mother, Doria Ragland, is Black; Markle also identifies as a person of color. But when she became pregnant, she told Winfrey in 2021, members of the royal household informed her that her child with Harry, “the first member of color in this family,” would not be “titled in the same way that other grandchildren would be.” 

“We have in tandem the conversation of, ‘He won’t be given security. He’s not going to be given a title,’” Markle said. “And also concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he’s born.” 

“It was really hard to be able to see those as compartmentalized conversations, that if you were to be brown that would be a problem,” she said.

When Harry joined Markle and Oprah couch, he said that conversations about the color of his kids’ skin began even before the pair married in 2018. “What will the kids look like?” he said he was asked as the relationship between the prince and the actress became serious. 

“That was right at the beginning when she 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,” he said. “There were some clear, obvious signs that this was going to be very hard.”

During the interview, they declined to name who within the royal inner circle brought up these racially loaded concerns, with Harry saying “That conversation I’m never going to share.” But according to a new book by chronicler-to-the-royals Omid Scobie, those discussions were indeed shared with at least one person: King Charles.

Scobie’s book, Endgame: Inside the Royal Family and the Monarchy’s Fight for Survival, doesn’t come out until November 28, but slews of details from the “highly controversial and potentially defamatory” (per the Times) work are already being revealed in the U.K. press. That includes the news that in a series of private letters Markle wrote to Charles in the spring of 2021, she named the members of the household who made the problematic remarks, the Sun reports.

As part of those letters, Markle told Charles that “unconscious bias and ignorance” were at play within the royal household, and needed to be addressed. In letters in response, Charles told her “he felt ‘no ill will’ or ‘casual prejudice’ had been involved,” the Sun reports.

Following the Winfrey interview, Buckingham Palace also released a brief statement addressing the claims. “The issues raised, particularly of race, are concerning. While some recollections may vary, they are taken very seriously and will be addressed by the family privately.”