Meghan Markle Claims She Had To Turn Down Previous Oprah Interview: 'It Wasn't My Choice To Make'

The Duchess said it was "really liberating" to be able to say that she's "ready to talk".

Meghan Markle had to turn down a previous chance of an interview with Oprah Winfrey, claiming that was “not her choice to make”. 

US television network CBS has released a full excerpt from Oprah’s upcoming interview with Meghan and Prince Harry, which is set to air in the US on Sunday.

In the clip, Oprah reveals she called Meghan prior to the couple’s wedding in 2018 to ask her for an interview, to which the Duchess Of Sussex claimed she couldn’t even speak about the possibility of it without royal interference. 

 

Meghan says: “I remember that conversation very well, I wasn’t even allowed to have that conversation with you personally, right? There had to be someone – people from the comms – sitting there. Everything was...”

Oprah says: “Yeah, there were other people in the room when I was having that conversation. You turned me down nicely and said, ’Perhaps there will be another time, when there is the right time.’” 

Asked what made now the right time, Meghan takes a long pause, before saying: “Well, so many things, that were on the other side of life experience that’s happened, and that we have the ability to make our own choices in a way that I couldn’t have said yes to you then. That wasn’t my choice to make.”

Explaining the difficulties she faced living with the restrictions of royal life, Meghan continues: ″As an adult who lived a really independent life, to then go into this construct that is... different than what I think people imagine it to be, it’s really liberating to be able to have the right and the privilege, in some ways, to be able to say yes and that I’m ready to talk.

“To just be able to make a choice on your own and be able to speak for yourself.”

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Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will open up to Oprah Winfrey
CBS/PA

In one of two clips released earlier this week, Harry said he feared “history repeating itself” in a reference to his mother’s death as he recounted his royal life with Meghan. 

In the second video, Harry said he is grateful to have had Meghan’s support throughout his exit from royal life, while also expressing admiration for what his mother Diana, Princess of Wales, had to endure under similar circumstances.

He told Oprah: “I’m just really relieved and happy to be sitting here, talking to you, with my wife by my side, because I can’t begin to imagine what it must have been like for her, going through this process by herself, all those years ago.

“Because it has been unbelievably tough for the two of us, but at least we had each other.”

Another trailer was then released on Wednesday, in which Meghan claimed the palace is “perpetuating falsehoods about us”

Asked how she felt about the “palace hearing you speak your truth”, she replied: “I don’t know how they could expect that after all of this time we would still just be silent if there is an active role that The Firm is playing in perpetuating falsehoods about us. 

“And if that comes with risk of losing things, I mean ― there’s a lot that has been lost already,” the Duchess added. 

Meghan and Harry’s interview with Oprah will air in the US on Sunday night, airing in the UK on Monday at 9pm on ITV.