Missed Meghan and Harry’s Oprah interview? How to rewatch the whole thing

Oprah’s headline-making interview of American-born Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, and her husband, Prince Harry, was nothing less than explosive, and it continues to reverberate days later. 

In the Sunday interview, Meghan said she endured “constant” suicidal thoughts and that no one in the palace would help her. She and Harry said a royal family member expressed concern about how dark baby Archie’s skin color might be. Harry said his father, Prince Charles, wouldn’t take his phone calls for a while, and cut him off from royal money. The two said the palace cut them off from royal protection despite death threats, some based on Meghan being biracial. It was a grim two-hour recitation that sent “American Twitter” raring to fight “British Twitter” after it was over.

Author Nicole Chung tweeted, “We’re going to England, we ride at dawn.”

And writer George M. Johnson tweeted, “Oprah just woke up one day and was like, ‘You know what, I’m bored. Lemme take down the British monarchy.'”

How can I rewatch Oprah’s interview with Prince Harry and Meghan?

If you missed the Oprah, Meghan and Harry special, it’s not too late. It’s available to watch for free on CBS.com, as well as on the CBS app, which is available for free on iOS and Android. 

If you do want to watch, make the time soon. CBS will remove the interview in 30 days.

Don’t have two hours?

Yes, the full interview is two hours long. CBS released a number of teaser clips before the broadcast in case you just want to see snippets. 

Oprah’s Monday follow-up

Even if you’ve watched the entire two-hour special, Monday brought fresh fodder. Winfrey went on CBS This Morning, where her BFF Gayle King works, and shared some of her thoughts, as well as snippets that didn’t air.

Winfrey said she told her production team the most important question to be answered about Meghan and Harry and their departure from England was “Why did they leave?” She emphasized that the couple did not blindside the 94-year-old queen with news of their plan, saying Queen Elizabeth II was kept informed. She said that she believed the couple chose to speak to her because of the pain of being lied about by the palace, and that they wanted to set the record straight about how they were treated.

Winfrey also revisits the revelation that someone in the royal family talked to Harry about his son’s skin color, and said again that it was neither the queen nor her husband, Philip, who had this discussion with the prince.

In another part of the CBS This Morning interview, an unaired clip from the interview shows Meghan discussing her controversial father, Thomas Markle, and her half-sister Samantha. Tabloid employees dug up Thomas Markle’s address and moved in near him, watching him and giving him gifts, Meghan said. She also admitted that her father lied to her about whether he’d been talking to the publications, though she danced around calling it a “betrayal.”

Samantha Markle, her half-sister, released a book recently called The Diary of Princess Pushy’s Sister Part 1. Meghan Markle said she didn’t really have a relationship with Samantha, grew up as an only child, and hasn’t seen her in nearly 20 years.

Oprah also said she could tell it was painful for Harry to discuss his fraught relationship with his father, Prince Charles, noting that no one in the royal family — Charles included — stood up for Meghan and Harry and against the racist undertones of how they were covered in the press.

How did we get here?

Normal protocol for someone as high up in the royal family as Harry would be to live in the UK forever, as a working member of the royal family — attending hospital openings, museum exhibits, board meetings, playing bingo with pensioners and generally just supporting Queen Elizabeth II in a quiet yet respectful way. Realistically, with his father Charles, brother William, and William and Kate’s three kids all in line to the throne before him, Harry was never going to rule. And as he made clear Sunday night, he felt unsupported, and even endangered, by family decisions that he felt were not helping his own family.

You may have heard that Meghan and Harry moved first to Canada, then to California in 2020. In February 2021, after a year trial, Buckingham Palace announced the couple would not return as working members of the royal family, through they would remain “much loved.” 

And Meghan and Harry have been busy. In 2020, they signed a deal to develop programming for Netflix, and they’ve also signed a deal with Spotify to produce and host their own podcasts. They’re residing in America now, and Americans gonna America.  So the Oprah interview, while not something a regular royal would do, fits right in with what a Hollywood celebrity would take on.

Why Oprah?

Why not Oprah? Although Winfrey stopped making her iconic talk show in 2011, she’s still one of the most powerful, best-known women in American media, and maybe the world. And Oprah has been a part of the royal couple’s life for a while now. She attended their 2018 royal wedding, and lives not far from their Montecito, California, home. In fact, it was Oprah who gave baby Archie the cute book, Duck! Rabbit!, that he was seen reading with Meghan in a video released to mark his first birthday in May 2020.