Oprah with Meghan and Harry

Filmed in Santa Barbara County, California, the interview came the year after Prince Harry and Meghan announced their decision to step down as working members of the British royal family in January 2020.

Moreover, Meghan critiqued the British monarchy as an institution, while they both said one or more comments had been made privately to Harry by an unidentified individual within the royal family in relation to the skin color of their then-unborn son, Prince Archie.

[4] In March 2020,[5] Harry and Meghan stepped down as working members of the British royal family to move to North America and become financially independent,[6] subject to a 12-month review period should they change their minds.

[40] Additionally, Meghan talked about her conversation with her own father, Thomas Markle, in the days leading up to her wedding, mentioning that despite the fact that his relationship with the press could have been damaging to her reputation, he did not reveal his actions to her.

[55] Following the accession of Charles III, Archie became entitled or eligible to use the title "prince" and style "royal highness" as the child of a son of the monarch, pursuant to letters patent issued by King George V in 1917.

"[59] Journalist Camilla Tominey called into question Meghan's claims about lack of access to her passport, pointing out that the Duchess went on four foreign holidays in the six months after her wedding, went on official tours and enjoyed a lengthy honeymoon.

[60] During the interview, Harry claimed that security protection and financial support had been cut off by the royal family in "the first quarter" of 2020, which ended in April when they were in Canada, despite there being no change in the level of threat to their safety.

[61] This apparently contradicted an initial agreement, based on which "the monarchy had previously advised" that Harry's father, Prince Charles, would continue to provide financial support for a period of one year.

[62][63] During a Clarence House briefing on finances preceding the annual Sovereign Grant report, a spokesperson stated that Charles had "allocated a substantial sum" to support the Duke and Duchess until the summer of 2020.

[72] In the interview, Prince Harry stated that their commercial deals with Netflix and Spotify were "never part of the plan" and came into fruition on the suggestion of a third party to afford security costs after being cut off financially.

[37] The Daily Telegraph later reported that Meghan and Harry had held meetings surrounding "well-developed proposals" with the now-defunct streaming service Quibi a year before their departure from the royal family.

[78] Author and socialite Lady Colin Campbell later said that the comments were made by Harry's aunt Princess Anne; however, there was a "misunderstanding" and according to different sources the conversation had been "twisted".

[79] Journalist Christopher Andersen claimed in his 2021 book Brothers and Wives: Inside the Private Lives of William, Kate, Harry, and Meghan that the comments came from Prince Charles upon the announcement of his son's engagement, who "in a very kind of benign way" asked his wife Camilla, "What do you suppose their children's complexion might be?

[83] In November 2023, the Dutch edition of Endgame, written by Omid Scobie, who had previously authored the couple's biography, was recalled after it erroneously included the names of two royals who were alleged to have asked questions about Harry and Meghan's future child's skin color.

[92] In the interview, Meghan stated that when suffering from mental health issues she tried to talk to senior palace officials, telling them she "needed to go somewhere to get help" but was told that she could not because "it wouldn't be good for the institution.

[96] Months after Meghan wed Harry, a widely reported story, damaging to her public image, was published in the British media that she had made her sister-in-law, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, cry in a dispute over flower girl dresses.

[106] Meghan then allegedly compared her friend Jessica Mulroney's daughter "favourably" against Charlotte, and Catherine, who was exhausted after having recently given birth to Prince Louis, burst into tears.

Among examples given were an image broadcast containing the Daily Mail headline "Meghan's seed will taint our Royal Family", which the company stated was an edited version of the original, which reported the suspension of a UKIP politician over racist texts.

[118][119] A spokesperson for Meghan and Harry stated in June 2021, "The Duke's comments during the Oprah interview were in reference to the first quarter of the fiscal reporting period in the U.K., which starts annually in April.

[123][124] On September 9, 2021, a clip of the Oprah interview was shown at the British 26th National Television Awards, and "the audience reportedly started booing when Harry and Meghan appeared on-screen.

[132] On the day of the U.S. broadcast, comment was made in British newspaper The Observer that "in the United States, anglophiles and amateur royal watchers are simply sitting back and lapping up the show.

"[134] The Hollywood Reporter wrote that the garden setting and Meghan's wardrobe "endow[ed] the two-hour interview with a kind of California casualness that belied the many upsetting and emotional revelations to follow."

"[139] In the lead sentence in Time, Candy Lang wrote, "There was one clear thread throughout Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's dynamic interview with Oprah Winfrey on Sunday night: They believe they were driven from the royal family because of racism".

[140] Jonny Dymond of BBC wrote that the great contradictions due to "the merging of personal and public roles" within the family was the main factor which prompted the couple to leave.

"[145] She also doubted that the couple would be able to form a close relationship with the American upper class, most of whom "are unlikely to feel true kinship with people who give explosive gut-spilling interviews, never mind leak private family conversations to showbiz journalists".

Contradicting claims made by Prince Harry during the interview, Murray said, "the UK media is not bigoted and will not be swayed from its vital role holding the rich and powerful to account".

[149] The Bureau of Investigative Journalism stated the society's "statement denying bigotry and racism in the UK media shows a lack of awareness and understanding of deep-rooted and persistent problems that we see".

[185] Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau stated "I won't comment on what's going on over in the U.K., but I will continue to endeavour to fight against racism and intolerance every single day in Canada".

[195] In response to the allegations of racism, a source close to the palace stated that in order to tackle the issue they had "the policies, the procedures and programmes in place but we haven't seen the progress we would like in terms of representation and more needs to be done, we can always improve".

[201] She accused Meghan of making "demonstrably false and malicious statements" which subjected her to "humiliation, shame and hatred on a worldwide scale," as well as damaging their father's reputation to fabricate a "rags to royalty" narrative.