Handout photo supplied by Harpo Productions showing the Duke and Duchess of Sussex during their interview with Oprah Winfrey which was broadcast in the US on March 7. Issue date: Monday March 8, 2021.
The co-founder of Black Lives Matter (BLM) has reportedly called for a boycott of the Royal Family following Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey.
Opal Tometi told US news outlet TMZ on Tuesday that Brits should stop standing by the royals, and called for a boycott of the institution after it emerged that the couple was asked about the colour of their son’s skin tone by a member of the family.
The duchess told Oprah that “concerns” had been raised about their son Archie’s skin colour, before he was born in May 2019.
There were “concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he was born”, she said, adding that the conversations “were relayed to me from Harry”.
Oprah said she was “shocked” by the allegations – but has since clarified that neither the Queen nor her husband, Prince Philip, were responsible for the remarks.
Tometi said that the remarks about Archie’s skin tone shows that the Royal Family did not care about black lives – and that black women should be believed when they speak out about racism.
Elsewhere in the interview, Meghan revealed she was prevented from finding help for suicidal thoughts by the royal “institution” – while Harry admitted that racism was “a large part” of why they wanted to leave the UK for the US last year.
In his first public appearance since the revelations, Prince Charles chuckled when asked if he had watched the interview.
At the end of a visit to an NHS pop-up vaccine clinic in a north-west London church, a member of the press asked: “Sir, what did you think of the interview?”
Charles turned to look at the reporter as he left the building, then carried on walking, chuckling.
Buckingham Palace has yet to respond to a string of allegations made by Meghan and Harry in their Oprah Winfrey interview.
Meanwhile Brits are divided on whether Harry and Meghan were treated unfairly by the royal family.
A snap YouGov poll found 32 per cent believed they were treated unfairly, while an equal proportion – 32 per cent – did not, and 36 per cent did not know.
In the wake of the couple’s explosive Oprah Winfrey interview, most of the public’s sympathy lies with the Queen and the royal family, the survey found.
More than a third (36 per cent) of those questioned said their sympathies were mostly with the monarch and the rest of the Windsors, while 22 per cent sided with Harry and Meghan, 28 per cent said neither, and eight per cent said both.
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