Meghan Markle has revealed Prince Harry feels he ‘lost [his] dad’ and considered moving to New Zealand following their exit from the Royal Family.
In a new interview with The Cut, Markle revealed details about the royal rift after the pair decided to leave their old life behind.
When questioned about her rift with her own father, Thomas Markle, the Duchess of Sussex reflected on how the toxic tabloid culture tore both families apart.
“Harry said to me, ‘I lost my dad in this process’,” Markle told The Cut.
She added she was hopeful Harry’s relationship with his father could survive.
“It doesn’t have to be the same for them as it was for me, but that’s his decision,” she said.
During the couple’s bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2021, Harry said that Charles had “stopped taking [his] calls” and the Royals had cut them off financially after they left the UK.
In the infamous interview, Markle also revealed she had developed suicidal urges after joining the Royal Family, telling the talk show host she “didn’t see a solution” to the intense pressure and scrutiny her life was under.
She said she begged Buckingham Palace for help but didn’t receive it.
This drove the pair’s decision to step back from their roles as working members of the royal family and flee the UK, with New Zealand as one of the options they were weighing up.
In between dishing more dirt on the Royal Family, Markle told The Cut how the pair were willing to move to basically any commonwealth country, listing New Zealand, Canada and South Africa.
“Anything to just… because just by existing, we were upsetting the dynamic of the hierarchy. So we go, ‘Okay, fine, let’s get out of here. Happy to’,” Markle said.
But instead, they decided to move to California, US, in 2020 in what was globally called “Megxit” by British tabloids.
Markle told the outlet she believes there is still room for forgiveness between her and her royal in-laws, as well as her own family.
“I think forgiveness is really important. It takes a lot more energy to not forgive,” Markle said in the interview.
“But it takes a lot of effort to forgive. I’ve really made an active effort, especially knowing that I can say anything.”
Public response
British tabloids and Americans alike have not responded well to Markle’s candid interview with The Cut.
According to the Daily Mail, Americans slammed Markle for ‘using her title’ to keep ‘trashing the institution’.
Markle has a new podcast and there are talks of a Netflix docuseries with Prince Harry which were promoted in the article.
But what has riled people up the most was her “out of touch” comments likening herself to Nelson Mandela.
Markle described in the interview a moment from the 2019 London premiere of the live-action version of The Lion King where a cast member pulled her aside.
“He looked at me, and he’s just like light. He said, ‘I just need you to know, when you married into this family, we rejoiced in the streets the same we did when Mandela was freed from prison’,” Markle said.
While the interview notes “she knows she’s no Mandela” and said the comments were likely a mode of defence because if you are a symbol for good you can’t be hated.
However, the comments did quite the opposite, being branded “sickening” by the public.
“The Mandela anecdote alone had me gagging. How dare she use her title to keep trashing the institution that gave it to her? Shameless & shameful,” UK broadcaster and vocal critic of Meghan Piers Morgan tweeted.
“No self-awareness,” one person tweeted.
“Meghan drawing comparisons between her marriage to Harry and the freeing of Nelson Mandela is a new level of delude,” another said.
