On Thursday, Prince Albert of Monaco shared with BBC World News his thoughts on Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s interview with Oprah Winfrey. He found the couple’s “public display of dissatisfaction” inappropriate in the form in which it was being delivered.
“It’s very difficult to be in someone’s place. I can understand the pressures that they were under, but I think that this type of public display of dissatisfaction, to say the least, these types of conversations should be held within the intimate quarters of the family,” said Albert in the interview.
He continued, “It doesn’t really have to be laid out in the public sphere like that. So it did bother me a little bit, I can understand where they’re coming from in a certain way, but I think it wasn’t the appropriate forum to be able to have these kind of discussions.”
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle stepped back from their royal positions in March 2020 and confirmed 11 months later that they would not be returning as working members of the family. During their Oprah interview this year on March 7, Markle disclosed that she was “silenced” by the institution and denied help when she was suffering a mental health crisis.
Markle also discussed that a member of the royal family had voiced “concerns and conversations about how dark [Archie’s] skin might be when he’s born.” Although she did not want to name the family member, Oprah later said that it was neither Queen Elizabeth nor Prince Philip.
A source told Us Weekly that Prince William was “fuming” after hearing his brother and sister-in-law’s allegations, while a second insider revealed that Queen Elizabeth “has been in constant crisis meetings” since the interview.
Following the couple’s tell-all, the Buckingham Palace issued a statement in response on behalf of the Queen, reading, “The whole family is saddened to learn the full extent of how challenging the last few years have been for Harry and Meghan.” The statement also noted that Harry, Meghan, and Archie “will always be much loved family members.”
Advising Prince Harry on his new life, Prince Albert said, “I wish him the best but it’s a difficult world out there, and I hope that he can have judgment and wisdom to make the right choices.”
Prince Albert is married to South African former Olympic swimmer Charlene Wittstock and is one of the wealthiest royals in the world as the head of the princely house of Grimaldi and the reigning Prince of Monaco. The prince and his wife have two children – twins Gabriella Thérèse Marie and Jacques Honoré Rainier.
