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 Meghan and Harry's tell-all TV
interview with Oprah Winfrey aired on U.S.
television on Sunday has plunged the monarchy
into its biggest crisis since the 1997 death of
Harry's mother Diana.
In the two-hour show, Meghan accused Britain's
royal family of raising concerns about how dark
their son Archie's skin might be and ignoring
her pleas for help while she felt suicidal.
Harry also said his father, heir-to-the-throne
Prince Charles, had let him down and that he had
felt trapped in his royal life.
"The whole family is saddened to learn the full
extent of how challenging the last few years
have been for Harry and Meghan," Buckingham
Palace said in a statement issued on behalf of
Elizabeth.
"The issues raised, particularly that of race,
are concerning. Whilst some recollections may
vary, they are taken very seriously and will be
addressed by the family privately. Harry, Meghan
and Archie will always be much loved family
members."
The Palace considered that this was a family
matter, a royal source said, adding the royals
should be given the opportunity to discuss the
issues raised privately as a family.
The interview was watched by 12.4 million
viewers in Britain and 17.1 million in the
United States, triggering a crisis to which the
monarchy had to respond, media said.
It has proved divisive among the British public,
with some believing it showed how outdated and
intolerant the institution was, while others
decried it as a self-serving assault that
neither Elizabeth nor her family deserved.
"It could hardly be more damaging to the royal
family, not least because there is little it can
do to defend itself," The Times said in a lead
article under the title "Royal Attack".
"The key to the monarchy's survival over the
centuries has been its ability to adapt to the
needs of the times. It needs to adapt again,"
The Times said.
Earlier on Tuesday, Charles made no comment when
asked by a reporter what he thought of the
interview while visiting a COVID-19 vaccine
pop-up clinic in London.
A royal source had said Elizabeth, 94, who has
been on the throne for 69 years, wanted to take
some time before the Palace issued a response,
saying it needed careful consideration.
A former senior royal aide said it was likely
that the three most senior royals - the queen,
Charles and Prince William, second in line to
the throne and Harry's elder brother, would have
held meetings with their private secretaries and
communications chiefs to decide on their
response.
"This is pretty important and they've got to
judge it right," said the former aide, adding
the queen would have had the final say.
TABLOID TORTURE?
In the interview, nearly three years since her
wedding in Windsor Castle, Meghan gained
sympathy in the United States by casting some
unidentified members of the royal family as
uncaring, mendacious or guilty of racist
remarks.
Meghan and Harry have also had a torrid
relationship with the British press,
successfully taking papers to court on
occasions, and have repeatedly questioned what
they say is reporting tainted by racist
overtones.
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 Harry said in the interview he
did not know where to turn when faced with such
troubling media coverage and felt hurt when his
family failed to call out racist reporting.
He said the royal family had an unhealthy silent
agreement with the British tabloids and that the
family was paranoid about the media turning on
them.
"There is a level of control by fear that has
existed for generations," Harry said.
For the monarchy, which traces its history
through 1,000 years of British and English
history to William the Conqueror, Meghan's
bombshell has been compared to the crises over
the death of Diana and the 1936 abdication of
Edward VIII.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson watched the
interview, his spokesman said, but would not be
making further comment on it.
Johnson said on Monday he had the highest
admiration for the queen but that he did not
want to speak about the interview. New Zealand's
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said her nation
was unlikely to stop having the queen as head of
state soon.
'TRAPPED'
Opponents of the monarchy said the allegations
made by Meghan and Harry showed how rotten the
institution was and that the Palace's public
relations machine had created a distorted image
of the royals. "Now people are
getting a much clearer picture of what the
monarchy is really like. And it doesn't look
good," said Graham Smith, head of Republic, a
campaign group which seeks to abolish the
monarchy.
Royal supporters cast Meghan, 39, an American
former actor, as a publicity seeker with an eye
on Hollywood stardom.
A YouGov poll found a majority of young people
thought the royals' treatment of the couple was
unfair, while half of older people said the
opposite.
The gravity of the claims has raised questions
about how the British monarchy, which survived
centuries of revolution that toppled their
cousins across Europe, could function in a
meritocratic world.
Meghan, whose mother is Black and father is
white, said her son Archie, who turns two in
May, had been denied the title of prince because
there were concerns within the royal family
"about how dark his skin might be when he's
born".
She declined to say who had voiced such
concerns, as did Harry. Winfrey later told CBS
that Harry had said it was not the queen or her
99-year-old husband Philip, who has been in
hospital for three weeks while the crisis
unfolds.
Meghan's estranged father Thomas Markle, who she
has not spoken to since her wedding, said he did
not think the British royal family was racist.
(Reporting by Michael Holden and Guy
Faulconbridge; Editing by Mike Collett-White and
Janet Lawrence)
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