{"id":2512921,"date":"2026-07-22T18:14:33","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T18:14:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2512921"},"modified":"2026-07-22T18:14:33","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T18:14:33","slug":"oprah-winfrey-insists-prince-harry-and-meghan-markle-didnt-know-anything-i-was-going-to-ask-them-during-infamous-2021-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/oprah-winfrey-insists-prince-harry-and-meghan-markle-didnt-know-anything-i-was-going-to-ask-them-during-infamous-2021-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Oprah Winfrey Insists Prince Harry and Meghan Markle ‘Didn\u2019t Know Anything I Was Going to Ask Them’ During Infamous 2021 Interview"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Meghan Markle<\/strong><\/a> and Prince Harry<\/strong><\/a> caused quite the stir when they sat down with Oprah Winfrey<\/strong><\/a> in 2021 to talk about their post-royal life.<\/p>\n

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex chatted<\/a> with the media mogul, 72, at the time where they unleashed their thoughts surrounding their royal exit that occurred a year prior.<\/p>\n

Now, Winfrey is lifting the lid on what really went down during the bombshell interview.<\/p>\n

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In January 2020, Harry, 41, and the Suits<\/em> star, 44, moved their family to Montecito, Calif., and announced they would be stepping back as senior members of The Firm.<\/p>\n

Winfrey shared some insight into the “Megxit” interview in a Vanity Fair<\/em><\/a> video published on Tuesday, July 22.<\/p>\n

The Interview Took Almost 4 Hours to Film<\/h2>\n
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The Sussexes moved to California in 2020.@vanityfair\/YouTube<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

\u201cThey didn\u2019t know, obviously, anything that I was going to ask them, but I had said to them ahead of time, \u2018I\u2019m going to try to cover everything,'” The Butler<\/em> actress recalled.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis interview took three and a half hours. And as is always the case for me, I want it to be a win-win for [them],\u201d she continued about speaking with the Sussexes.<\/p>\n

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Meghan Markle and Prince Harry claimed the royal family was racist in their interview.@vanityfair\/YouTube<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Winfrey went on: \u201cSo I was just trying to carefully go through everything that had come up in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the interview, Harry and Meghan mentioned the plethora of emotions<\/a> they felt while living in the U.K. as members of the royal family.<\/p>\n

Meghan \u2014 who was pregnant with daughter Princess Lilibet<\/strong> at the time \u2014 claimed the family was racist and offered no support to her. She also detailed experiencing suicidal thoughts and mental health issues during her pregnancy with her first child, Prince Archie<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

‘Were You Silent or Silenced?’<\/h2>\n
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Oprah Winfrey also recalled her famous ‘were you silent or silenced’ moment with Meghan Markle.@vanityfair\/YouTube<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Perhaps the most viral moment from the interview occurred when Winfrey asked the former actress whether she was “silent or silenced” by the royal family<\/a>, to which Meghan bluntly replied: \u201cThe latter.”<\/p>\n

Winfrey famously made a “zipped lip” hand gesture while asking the question, and also looked back on the moment in her Vanity Fair<\/em> clip.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know where the h— that came from,\u201d The Color Purple<\/em> star chuckled about her hand movement. \u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019ve done it since.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prince William Was Worried About What the Sussexes Would Say<\/h2>\n
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Meghan Markle was pregnant with daughter Princess Lilibet during her 2021 interview.MEGA<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

\u201cI wanted to be clear, because was she silenced? Were people telling her not to talk?\u201d she explained. \u201cI said it for clarification, because I didn\u2019t want later to hear, \u2018Well, no, it wasn\u2019t that. It really was that I was silenced. They wouldn\u2019t let me talk.\u2019 So it was all for clarification.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was previously reported Prince William<\/strong><\/a> was “sick with worry” about his estranged brother’s interview with Winfrey.<\/a><\/p>\n

Royal author Christopher Andersen<\/strong> wrote in his Kate Middleton<\/strong><\/a> biography, Kate! The Courage, Grace and Power of the Woman Who Will Be Queen<\/em>, the Prince of Wales, 44, was “retching for a week” before the chat.<\/p>\n

\u201cWilliam was too distracted to think of food” over what Harry and Meghan would spill about the family.<\/p>\n

Read more at OK!<\/a><\/p>\n

Get OK!’s biggest scoops and scandals delivered right to your inbox. Sign up now<\/a>.<\/p>\n

FOLLOW OK! ON WHATSAPP HERE<\/a>: Stay across all the latest in celebrity, entertainment, and pop culture via our WhatsApp channel<\/a>. No comments, no algorithm and nobody can see your private details.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.aol.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry caused quite the stir when they sat down with Oprah Winfrey in 2021 to talk about their post-royal life. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex chatted with the media mogul, 72, at the time where they unleashed their thoughts surrounding their royal exit that occurred a year prior. Now, Winfrey […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2512922,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2512921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrities"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Oprah-Winfrey-Insists-Prince-Harry-and-Meghan-Markle-Didnt-Know.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2512921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2512921"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2512921\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2512923,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2512921\/revisions\/2512923"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2512922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2512921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2512921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2512921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}