Oprah Winfrey has found herself under renewed fire after defending her 2021 interview with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in a Vanity Fair video segment that aired yesterday. The broadcast legend revisited one of the sit-down’s most memorable exchanges and explained her questioning strategy, but the explanation backfired among royal watchers who took to X to blast what they saw as a hollow justification years after the fact.
Winfrey appeared in the magazine’s “Scene Selection” series, which highlighted pivotal moments from her broadcasting career. Along with the Sussex conversation, she reminisced about the famous 2004 giveaway on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” when she distributed 276 cars valued at over $7 million. She also revealed that the Harry and Meghan interview had been postponed three times before the pair finally sat down for an extensive three-hour-forty-minute conversation that would send shockwaves through the royal family.
An Interview That Shook the Palace
The broadcast, which debuted on CBS on March 7, 2021, became a global sensation. Coming one year after the couple left the UK in 2020 and following their withdrawal from working royal roles, it marked their first major television appearance as California residents. A heavily pregnant Meghan told Winfrey that palace insiders had raised concerns about their son Archie’s skin tone and charged the institution with spreading lies about them. The two-hour program drew more than 17 million American viewers.
Winfrey, 71, had forged ties with the Sussexes well before the interview. She attended their 2018 wedding and is believed to have met Meghan through CBS. She had sought an earlier interview that was turned down, with the duchess reportedly believing the moment was not appropriate.
Fans Accuse Oprah of Backpedaling
In the Vanity Fair clip, Winfrey discussed the iconic moment that became one of the interview’s defining takeaways. She recounted posing the question to Meghan about whether her silence had been voluntary or forced. The duchess answered: “The latter.”
Winfrey said she crafted the question intentionally to pin down whether palace staff had barred Meghan from speaking publicly. She wanted to ensure no one could twist Meghan’s words later. The wording was carefully chosen to achieve that clarity, she maintained. She even laughed at her own expression captured on camera during the moment.
But online critics were unmoved. Observers on X accused Winfrey of trying to create distance from an interview she once championed without reservation. Some said she looked uneasy watching the footage again; others called her rationale empty corporate-speak. Many argued she should have pressed the couple harder on their assertions during the original conversation, pointing to claims such as their private wedding ceremony ahead of the official St George’s Chapel service in Windsor—a detail later contradicted by officials—and Meghan’s insistence she had done no homework on the Royal Family before meeting Harry.
Old Wounds Resurface Amid Reconciliation
The resurfacing of this footage arrives at a delicate juncture. The Sussexes recently held a private meeting with King Charles earlier this month in what appeared to be a tentative step toward repairing their fractured relationship with the monarchy. The renewed attention on the interview risks undoing that progress. One social media commenter wondered aloud why anyone would dredge up the subject now. Another noted that the broadcast has not held up well with time.
Multiple viewers referenced the late Queen Elizabeth II’s diplomatic response to the racism and mistreatment allegations that emerged from the interview—that “recollections may vary”—a phrase that has become shorthand for the Palace’s cautious stance toward the couple’s version of events. Winfrey has remained steadfast in her support for Harry and Meghan’s choice to leave royal life, saying previously that she stood by them entirely. The broadcaster’s relationship with the Sussexes established her as a prominent ally during their rift with King Charles and the Prince and Princess of Wales. Five years on, her latest attempt to clarify her journalistic approach has only reignited the controversy surrounding a conversation that refuses to fade into history.
