I was not aware of that Harry said this, but I have not re-watched the interview. Can you provide the quote where Harry said this? That the comment was made by someone linking a concern about his future children's skin color to concern about the reputation of the family?
I am unable to find it myself.
Meghan said that Harry told her about the conversation. Harry would not say what was said when he was asked by Oprah.
This is what Meghan said:
Oprah: You certainly must have had some conversations with Harry about it and have your own suspicions as to why they didn’t want to make Archie a prince. What are . . . what are those thoughts? Why do you think that is? Do you think it’s because of his race?
Meghan: (Sighs)
Oprah: And I know that’s a loaded question, but . . .
Meghan: But I can give you an honest answer. In those months when I was pregnant, all around this same time . . . so we have in tandem the conversation of ‘He won’t be given security, he’s not going to be given a title’ and also concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he’s born.
Oprah: What?
Meghan: And . . .
Oprah: Who . . . who is having that conversation with you? What?
Meghan: So . . .
Oprah: There is a conversation . . . hold on. Hold up. Hold up. Stop right now.
Meghan: There were . . . there were several conversations about it.
Oprah: There’s a conversation with you . . ?
Meghan: With Harry.
Oprah: About how dark your baby is going to be?
Meghan: Potentially, and what that would mean or look like.
Oprah: Whoo. And you’re not going to tell me who had the conversation?
Meghan: I think that would be very damaging to them.
Oprah: OK. So, how . . . how does one have that meeting?
Meghan: That was relayed to me from Harry. Those were conversations that family had with him. And I think . . .
Oprah: Whoa.
Meghan: It was really hard to be able to see those as compartmentalised conversations.
Oprah: Because they were concerned that if he were too brown, that that would be a problem? Are you saying that?
Meghan: I wasn’t able to follow up with why, but that — if that’s the assumption you’re making, I think that feels like a pretty safe one, which was really hard to understand, right? Especially when — look, I — the Commonwealth is a huge part of the monarchy, and I lived in Canada, which is a Commonwealth country, for seven years. But it wasn’t until Harry and I were together that we started to travel through the Commonwealth, I would say 60 per cent, 70 per cent of which is people of colour, right?
This is what Harry said:
Oprah: Well, what is particularly striking is what Meghan shared with us earlier, is that no one wants to admit that there’s anything about race or that race has played a role in the trolling and the vitriol, and yet Meghan shared with us that there was a conversation with you about Archie’s skin tone.
Harry: Mm-hmm.
Oprah: What was that conversation?
Harry: That conversation I’m never going to share, but at the time . . . at the time, it was awkward. I was a bit shocked.
Oprah: Can you . . . can you tell us what the question was?
Harry: No. I don’t . . . I’m not comfortable with sharing that.
Oprah: OK.
Harry: But that was . . . that was right at the beginning, right?
Oprah: Like, what will the baby look like?
Harry: Yeah, what will the kids look like?
Oprah: What will the kids look like?
Harry: But 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 was not enough money to pay for her, and all this sort of stuff. Like, there was some real obvious signs before we even got married that this was going to be really hard.