Boris Johnson praises Queen Elizabeth, steering clear of explosive Harry and Meghan interview
- The British PM expresses his admiration for the monarch’s unifying role, as the couple’s tell-all interview sends shock waves through the royal family
- In a broadcast watched by 17 million in the US, Markle said someone in the royal family had raised questions about the colour of her son’s skin
Prime Minister Boris Johnson avoided wading into the clash of British royals on Monday, praising the queen but sidestepping questions about racism and insensitivity at the palace after an interview by Prince Harry and his wife Meghan.
The former Hollywood actress, whose mother is black and father is white, accused the royal family of pushing her to the brink of suicide. In a tell-all television interview, she said someone in the royal household had raised questions about the colour of her son’s skin.
Prime ministers rarely comment on royal matters. But journalists repeatedly asked Johnson about it on Monday.
“I’ve always had the highest admiration for the queen and the unifying role that she plays in our country and across the Commonwealth,” he said.
“As for the rest, all other matters to do with the royal family: I’ve spent a long time now not commenting on royal family matters and I don’t intend to depart from that today.”
Harry and Meghan left Britain last year and have given up their royal duties to forge a new life in Los Angeles, earning media production deals. The interview with Oprah Winfrey was aired late on Sunday in the United States and was to be broadcast on Monday evening in Britain.
Meghan, 39, said her son Archie, now aged one, 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 and Harry both declined to say who had raised the subject. Winfrey later told CBS that Harry had said it was not Queen Elizabeth or her husband Philip.
Buckingham Palace has declined to comment.
Meghan and Prince Harry lift lid on royal rift in Oprah interview
Some 17.1 million Americans watched Sunday’s two-hour interview, broadcaster CBS said on Monday.
It dominated the conversation on social media, morning television shows and newspaper front pages on Monday in Britain and abroad.
The hashtag #HarryandMeghanonOprah was among the top five trending items worldwide on Twitter during and after the broadcast, while #Abolishthemonarchy was also buzzing, with 11,200 tweets.
In the United States, sympathy for the couple poured in after the interview.
Tennis star Serena Williams, a friend who attended Harry and Meghan’s wedding, said on Twitter that the duchess’s words “illustrate the pain and cruelty she’s experienced.”
“The mental health consequences of systemic oppression and victimization are devastating, isolating and all too often lethal,” Williams added.
Meghan and Harry’s revelations featured top in every British newspaper website, apart from the Financial Times, where it took a lower billing to the Bank of England governor.
By lunchtime in London, Mail Online had 24 stories on the couple on its website. Its print stablemate The Mail on Sunday published an 11-page special in anticipation of the broadcast. It recently lost a privacy lawsuit with Meghan.
Queen to ‘ignore’ Prince Harry and Meghan’s Oprah Winfrey interview
The Daily Express had more than 30 different stories online.
The broadcast was the most anticipated royal interview since Harry’s late mother Princess Diana shared intimate details of her failed marriage to Prince Charles in 1995, denting the reputation of the heir.
On Monday a YouGov poll, based on snippets of the interview and the media coverage, said 47 per cent of people in Britain thought it was inappropriate that the couple had given the interview. A third had sympathy for them, but a third had none.
Harry also used the interview to attack the press, parts of which he has despised since his mother was killed in a 1997 crash as her car sped away from chasing photographers. Britain’s Society of Editors said it was not bigoted and would continue to hold the “rich and powerful” to account.
Additional reporting by Associated Press
