Prince Harry reveals his ‘biggest fear was history repeating itself’ in the teaser for his bombshell sit down with Oprah
Prince Harry has revealed that his ‘biggest fear was history repeating itself’ and that leaving the Royal Family was ‘unbelievably tough’ in a dramatic new teaser for his and Meghan’s ‘shocking’ interview with Oprah.
Pregnant Meghan was silent in the short clip, as she sat with her hand gently resting on her baby bump.
But Oprah asks her about a comment she appears to have made in their 90-minute interview, about how she found life as a royal ‘almost un-survivable.’ ‘”Almost un-survivable” sounds like there was a breaking point,’ Oprah commented, before asking the former Suits actress; ‘Were you silent or were you silenced?’
Harry, clearly reflecting on his mother Princess Diana’s troubled life, later told the talk show host that ‘biggest fear’; ‘history repeating itself.
Oprah, who seemed stunned by the candor of the couple, later told them: ‘You’ve said some pretty shocking things here’.
The teaser will raise fears at the Buckingham Palace that the interview will be a no-holds barred airing of the couple’s feud with the Royals – weeks after their ‘petulant’ and ‘horribly disrespectful’ swipe at The Queen telling her ‘service is universal’ left Prince William and courtiers furious. The way the couple blindsided the Palace and the Queen with the Oprah deal also created anger and prompted the announcement that they would lose their royal patronages.
In a second, 30-second teaser posted Sunday, Harry said he was ‘relieved’ to be opening up with Meghan by his side – and said he can’t imagine what his mother went through ‘going through this process by herself.’
‘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 have been like for her going through this process by herself all those years ago,’ Harry said.
‘Because it’s been unbelievably tough for the two of us but at least we have each other.’
Oprah’s very rare sit-down interview with Prince Harry and Meghan is scheduled to air on CBS at 8pm on March 7.
Oprah called her interview with the royal couple ‘the best she has ever done’, according to her best friend Gayle King.
King, 66, who is an anchor for CBS, made the comments on This Morning on Friday while reporting on the Duke of Sussex’s appearance on James Corden’s Late Late Show.
King said the interview with Oprah, which was filmed before Harry’s appearance with Corden, is the couple’s ‘first major broadcast interview since giving up their senior royal duties.’
‘I’ve heard from reliable sources, this is Oprah talking, that it’s the best interview she’s ever done so I’m curious. That’s saying something,’ King said.
King revealed on February 16 that Oprah had been given permission to ask Harry and Meghan ‘anything she wanted’ and that ‘nothing was off limits’ during the interview.
News of the interview likely sparked fresh fears for Buckingham Palace over what embarrassing revelations could come to light – particularly in the wake of the Queen’s decision to remove the couple’s remaining royal patronages and honorary titles, a move that prompted the Sussexes to bite back in a petty public statement.
On Monday, it was revealed that the Queen address the UK in a pre-recorded speech that will air on BBC One before the interview with Harry and Meghan.
The Queen was due to attend the annual Commonwealth Service on March 8 – but this has been cancelled for the first time in nearly half a century due to COVID-19, Westminster Abbey announced on Monday.
Instead, the Queen has chosen to share her annual message 24 hours earlier with a show of support from Prince Charles and Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, Prince William and Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, and Sophie, the Countess of Wessex.
The Royal Family will also take part in the Queen’s A Celebration For Commonwealth Day show, hosted by Anita Rani to share their royal perspectives on the importance of Britain’s Commonwealth links.
Buckingham Palace previously announced that Harry and Meghan had been stripped of their remaining roles following their move to California
On Monday, it also emerged that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s incendiary interview with Oprah may have to be re-edited or even partially re-shot due to the rift it has caused with the royal family and 99-year-old Prince Philip’s hospitalization.
Some previously claimed that the interview, believed to be completed two weeks, could even be toned down – though new trailers show that seems unlikely.
It has also emerged that Meghan is expected to speak about the feud with her own family on her father Thomas’ side in the interview with Oprah.
This Morning host Holly Willoughby said that Oprah’s team had been in contact with ITV for footage of an interview with her half-sister.
In the January 2020 broadcast Samantha Markle said the former Suits actress and Harry owed her and their father an apology for ‘incredibly wrong, untoward, and shocking’ behavior after the royal wedding in 2018.
‘Oprah Winfrey’s team contacted This Morning requesting footage from our interview with Samantha Markle in preparation for the interview with the Duchess of Sussex,’ Willoughby said on Monday.
She added: ‘So, we don’t know whether or not they used that in the interview, but what we do know is nothing was off limits.’
Insight into the no-holds-barred interview with Oprah has prompted further questions about why Harry and Meghan chose to take part in such an explosive sit-down, in spite of their continued insistence that the media respects their privacy.
Those same questions arose after Harry’s interview with Corden aired – while critics also outrage over his decision to defend Netflix show The Crown, despite its very negative portrayal of his grandmother, parents, and wider members of the family.
Harry, who, along with his wife, inked a very lucrative deal with Netflix last year, told long-time friend Corden that he has watched The Crown, and said that the show is ‘fictional’ but ‘loosely based on the truth’ and captures the feeling of being expected to put ‘duty and service above family and everything else’.
While sitting down for the widely-publicized interview, which partly took place on an open-air double-decker bus in Los Angeles, Harry hit out at the ‘toxic’ media – blaming the press for his decision to quit the royal family and relocate to the US.
The Duke said the pressure of being in London was ‘destroying my mental health’, but insisted that he never ‘walked away’ from the royals – instead describing the move as a ‘step back’.
‘It was never walking away. It was stepping back rather than stepping down. It was a really difficult environment, which I think a lot of people saw. So I did what any father or husband would do and thought: ‘How do I get my family out of there?’ But we never walked away.’
And while the interview was carried out before the Queen stripped the Sussexes of their royal patronages, Harry appears to know what was coming.
‘My life is public service, so wherever I am in the world it’s going to be the same thing. As far as I’m concerned, whatever decisions are made on that side [in Britain], I will never walk away,’ he said.