Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s Oprah Interview: Royal Expert Believes It’s a ‘Disaster Waiting to Happen’
The Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex Oprah interview is expected to allow the couple to speak their minds about what they were up against when they were in the royal spotlight. Oprah’s friend Gayle King noted that “nothing is off-limits” in the highly anticipated interview, but one royal expert is concerned that the Oprah tell-all interview is “a disaster waiting to happen.”
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s interview may make the royal family nervous
Looking at past royal interviews, such as Prince Andrew’s with BBC Newsnight or Princess Diana’s famous BBC Panorama interview, Daily Mirror royal editor Russell Myers worries that things could go poorly with the Oprah interview.
During the Feb. 18 Pod Save the Queen podcast, host Ann Gripper discussed the upcoming Prince Harry and Meghan interview and Myers shared his reservations about how it will go over.
“I think, not only does this create nervousness in the palace, that this is something that they wouldn’t have wanted to happen, Harry and Meghan didn’t tell anyone at the palace, they didn’t tell any of the senior royals,” he explained. “Certainly everyone was finding out about it at the same time on Twitter the other day.”
“There were some reports that the queen does trust Harry, that he won’t put his foot in it or disgrace himself or the family, but these things do not go to plan do they?,” Myers noted. “Let’s look at Prince Andrew’s cataclysmic performance on BBC Newsnight just recently, a year ago.”
He continued, “And even further back, you look in the ‘90s, we’re still talking about those two interviews now, Princess Diana and Prince Charles’ before her, so it’s an absolute disaster waiting to happen, potentially.”
Will Meghan and Harry’s Oprah interview be like Princess Diana’s tell-all?
Gripper said that the Sussexes sitting down with Oprah will likely go slightly differently than the more investigative journalism interview that Princess Diana or Prince Andrew were put through.
“I think each of those cases is someone where they’re wanting to put their own narrative over and tell their side of the story and I would expect Meghan would be more able to tell her side of the story in the way that she wants it told with Oprah than Prince Andrew was able to with Emily Maitlis,” she explained.
“Partly because, obviously, there were serious allegations against Prince Andrew and it was exploring that and Emily Maitlis is… not an attack dog but…,” she added.
Myers interjected that Maitlis is “a proper journalist, a proper investigative journalist.”
Gripper shed a little light on Oprah’s style being more casual. “Oprah Winfrey does good interviews but it’s a very different forum and it’s with a different purpose and it’s not an investigation into Meghan’s… how it all went, it’s not that kind of thing,” she explained.
“You’d imagine she’d get a much easier ride and if she says, ‘Actually I don’t want to answer that,’ I would imagine they would cut it, whereas if Prince Andrew had said ‘I don’t want to answer that,’ they would totally have left it in,” Gripper added.
While Myers noted that the Prince Harry and Meghan interview “arguably won’t be this big investigative piece,” there will be a discussion about their experience after Meghan joined the royal family and their decision to exit their royal duties.
Myers worried that “anything slightly untoward” that the Sussexes say during their interview “could be quite damaging and hurtful, I imagine.”
