Meghan Markle was “authentically trying to be herself” during her Oprah Winfrey interview, according to the executive producer of the CBS prime time special.
Terry Wood, former executive vice president at Oprah’s Harpo Productions, told Harper’s Bazaar, “Meghan understands her voice better than you,” as he opened up about an interview that sparked a major global debate but failed to win any awards.
His comments came as part of a cover interview the magazine conducted with Meghan in which she also pitched herself to readers on the basis of authenticity.
Why It Matters
Meghan and Prince Harry’s March 2021 interview with Oprah was a blockbuster at the time, with its account of an unnamed royal voicing “concerns” about how dark her unborn child’s skin might be.
Debates also focused, though, on the reliability of the couple’s narrative even in the days immediately afterward when the Archbishop of Canterbury denied their account of a secret private wedding before their formal ceremony at St George’s Chapel. That trend, though, gathered pace in the years that followed.
Intriguingly, Oprah has only rarely commented on it, and the reception within the TV industry was also strangely muted in comparison to the frenzied global public reactions. The special missed out on an Emmy to Stanley Tucci’s cooking show Searching for Italy.
What to Know
“Meghan understands her voice better than you, better than any producer could put it out there,” Wood told Harper’s Bazaar. “She knows how she comes across, and she knows how she wants to connect. She understands that so much has been written about her that when she does something, she wants to break through that noise so people see that she is authentically trying to be herself.”
Wood also worked with Meghan on the production of Archetypes, the sole output from the couple’s multiyear Spotify deal, which collapsed in 2023.
Meghan also took up authenticity as a theme during her interview with the magazine: “I think the moment that you start making all of your personal decisions based on external judgment, then you lose your authenticity.”
Meghan Markle’s Surreal Harper’s Bazaar Interview
Needless to say, Kaitlyn Greenidge, the author and journalist, who conducted the interview, did note some unusual moments during several days spent with Meghan.
On one of their meetings, Meghan was staying at a friend’s house in New York: “We’re in a grand brownstone on the Upper East Side that belongs to one of Meghan’s friends. When I enter, the house manager announces, ‘Meghan, Duchess of Sussex,’ even though we appear to be the only other two people in the house.”
Another surreal moment came during their chat at the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel. “Our allotted time at the table is coming to a close,” Greenidge writes. “The last of the meal is whisked away, and a waiter comes by with an unsolicited cappuccino.
“In the foam on top, the restaurant has printed a photorealistic image of Meghan. ‘Oh,’ she says, smiling down at it. ‘I recognize this picture. That’s from our trip to South Africa.’
“(Prince Harry and Meghan toured the country in 2019.) It’s a lovely and absurd perk of celebrity, and Meghan is tickled enough to take a photo of it.”
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