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Meghan Markle has responded to a report that she corresponded with her father-in-law King Charles following her tell-all interview with Oprah Winfrey in March 2021. A report published by The Telegraph alleged that the Duchess of Sussex wanted to address “unconscious bias within the royal family” after telling Oprah that once she became pregnant with her and Prince Harry’s eldest son, Archie, there were “concerns and conversations about how dark [Archie’s] skin might be when he’s born.”
On Saturday afternoon, a representative for the Duchess of Sussex posted on social media in response and gave a statement to People reading:
“The Duchess of Sussex is going about her life in the present, not thinking about correspondence from two years ago related to conversations from four years ago. Any suggestion otherwise is false and frankly ridiculous. We encourage tabloid media and various royal correspondents to stop the exhausting circus that they alone are creating.”
The letter Meghan supposedly sent was in response to the now King writing to her, expressing his disappointment that there has been a rift between himself and his youngest son. The Duke and Duchess moved to California after stepping down as working members of the royal family. The correspondence reportedly contained the name of the family member who questioned Archie’s potential skin color and they agreed it was not necessarily a comment made with “malice intended.”
Since the Oprah interview, Meghan and Harry have revealed far more about the pressure and scrutiny they received from their U.K. family and the British press when they were living overseas. While promoting his memoir Spare in January, Harry discussed the interview with ITV‘s Tom Bradby and walked back some of the assumptions made by viewers.
“In the Oprah interview, you accuse members of your family of racism,” Bradby began.
“No, the British press said that, right?” Harry answered. “Did Meghan ever mention ‘they’re racists?’”
He went on, “The difference between racism and unconscious bias… the two things are different… Once it’s been acknowledged or pointed out to you as an individual, otherwise an institution, that you have unconscious bias, you, therefore, have an opportunity to learn and grow from that… otherwise, unconscious bias then moves into the category of racism.”
Aimée Lutkin is the weekend editor at ELLE.com. Her writing has appeared in Jezebel, Glamour, Marie Claire and more. Her first book, The Lonely Hunter, will be released by Dial Press in February 2022.