‘We’re not racist,’ says Britain’s Prince William after Meghan and Harry interview

Prince William said on Thursday (March 11) that Britain’s royals were not racist after Meghan Markle, wife of his younger brother, Prince Harry, said one unnamed member of the family had asked how dark their son Archie’s skin might be.

Meghan, 39, made the allegation during an explosive tell-all interview that she and Prince Harry, 36, gave to Oprah Winfrey and which was aired on Sunday, plunging the British monarchy into its biggest crisis since the 1997 death of Princess Diana, William and Harry’s mother.

On a visit to a school in east London, Prince William said he had not talked to his brother since the interview was broadcast just over three days ago.

“I haven’t spoken to him yet but I will do,” Prince William, 38, said.

Asked by a reporter if the royal family was racist, he said: “We’re very much not a racist family.”

In the two-hour show, nearly three years after their star-studded wedding in Windsor Castle, Meghan said the royals had ignored her pleas for help while she felt suicidal, while Prince Harry said his father, heir to the throne Prince Charles, had let him down and that he had felt trapped.

On Tuesday, Buckingham Palace issued a statement on behalf of 94-year-old Queen Elizabeth, the princes’ grandmother, in which she said the family were saddened by how challenging the couple had found the last few years.

But it was the couple’s accusation that one of the royals had made a racist comment which has dominated coverage and has the potential to cause lasting damage to the 1,000-year-old monarchy.

Who said it?

Meghan, whose mother is black and father is white, said while she was pregnant with Archie there were “concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he’s born”.

Neither she nor Harry said who had made the remark, although Winfrey later clarified 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.

“That conversation, I’m never going to share,” Prince Harry said during the interview. “But at the time, it was awkward. I was a bit shocked.”

In the statement from the Queen, the palace said issues of race were concerning and would be treated very seriously, but pointedly stated “some recollections may vary”.

During the interview, Prince Harry also laid bare how distant he had become from the other members of his family, saying his father had stopped taking his calls at one point, and that there was “space” in his relationship with Prince William.

“Much will continue to be said about that… as I said before, you know, I love William to bits, he’s my brother, we’ve been through hell together and we have a shared experience,” he said. “But we’re on different paths.”

Some believe it showed how outdated and intolerant the institution was, while others decried it as a self-serving assault that neither Queen Elizabeth nor her family deserved.