Meghan Markle Deepens Mystery Surrounding Royal Race Scandal

Meghan Markle's spokesperson denied she is skipping King Charles' coronation over correspondence sent between the two royals, posing further questions over racially charged allegations she made to Oprah Winfrey.

U.K. broadsheet The Daily Telegraph reported that Meghan expressed concerns about unconscious bias in the royal family in a letter to the king sent in the aftermath of the tell-all CBS interview in 2021.

Meghan was replying to a letter sent by Charles, who was, according to the newspaper, the only royal to make contact with her after the bombshell sit down.

A spokesperson for the duchess confirmed the existence of correspondence between the two royals but did not delve into the contents.

They also denied a suggestion in the article that Meghan's decision to miss the king's coronation was partly driven by a continued feeling she had not received a satisfactory response.

"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," the statement read.

"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," it said.

The reference to Meghan living her life in the present is interesting just four-and-a-half months after the couple released a six-hour Netflix documentary about the exact time period in question, and three-and-a-half months after Harry's memoir examined royal relations dating back 25 years across more than 400 pages.

Needless to say, the latest chapter in the ongoing story of Meghan and Harry's account of race and the royal family poses further questions.

History of the Royal Race Scandal

Question marks have hung over the couple's narrative since broadcast, not least because it did not name the royal in question or give context to the comments.

Meghan said that there were discussions within the family about the possibility the Sussex children would not be given prince and princess titles.

Winfrey asked whether this was because of race and Meghan replied: "In those months when I was pregnant, all around this same time… so we have in tandem the conversation of 'He won't be given security, he's not going to be given a title' and also concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he's born."

Winfrey asked whether she meant "that if he were too brown, that that would be a problem" while Meghan responded that would be a "pretty safe" assumption.

Harry was not by her side at the time, only joining the conversation later when he was asked about the incident but declined to go into details and added: "But that was right at the beginning, right?"

So from the word go, there was some confusion about the time frame for the remarks as Meghan announced her pregnancy in October 2018 and did her first royal engagement in December 2017.

The narrative was further complicated in January during Prince Harry's interviews to promote his book Spare. The prince told ITV Meghan had never accused the royals of racism and said that was a narrative of the U.K. press: "No, the British press said that, right? Did Meghan ever mention 'they're racists'?"

And he told 60 Minutes: "But I think that you speak to the majority—maybe not all—but the majority of mixed-race couples around the world, that the White side of the family would wonder, whether talking openly about it or amongst themselves, what their kids are gonna look like."

"The key word here was 'concern,'" he added, "as opposed to 'curiosity.'"

Harry said both he and Meghan viewed the remarks in the context of unconscious bias rather than racism but did not explicitly retract Meghan's use of the word concern.

He also introduced the idea the comment may instead have been curiosity but without explicitly stating whether or not it actually was.

Implications of the Statement From Meghan's Spokesperson

The latest statement suggests the correspondence was about conversations four years ago, dating back to 2019, the year Prince Archie was born.

That appears to align with Meghan's original account of the timeline, taking place when she was pregnant, rather than Harry's explanation that the remarks were made "right at the beginning."

One possible explanation is that Meghan was continuing to focus on the conversations about whether Archie would have a title and whether he would get security, shifting away from the remark about skin tone. Ultimately, the system was not changed and Archie and his sister, Princess Lilibet, got their titles when Queen Elizabeth II died and Charles became king, as expected.

The backdrop to the discussions Meghan referenced, Newsweek was told in 2021, was the king's ambition to slim down the monarchy.

The implication appears to be to further downplay the significance of the comment about skin color that originally took center stage in the backlash against the monarchy.

However, more than two years on the situation remains anything but clear and in a context where Harry has denied Meghan's words amounted to racism nothing can be assumed.

Neither Harry nor Meghan have formally retracted her use of the term "concerns" nor her direction to Oprah that it was safe to assume the royal in question felt it would be a problem to have a family member whose skin was too brown. The Telegraph suggested Meghan's letter confirmed she felt the remark was made without malice and had not intended to make an allegation of racism.

While Harry reaffirmed his belief the royals suffered from "unconscious bias" in January, he did not clarify whether he agrees with Meghan's view that any discussion over titles and security was ultimately motivated by race, even if under the surface.

Implications of the Wider Dispute

One interesting aspect of the letters is that they were reportedly sent when the world was vigorously debating the Winfrey interview as containing an allegation of racism against the royal family.

Harry now says that was a misinterpretation of Meghan's words, but he only made that clear almost two years after broadcast and the Sussexes said nothing publicly to quell the reputational flames at the time.

It cannot be said with any certainty where the Telegraph's story came from but it is worth noting that Harry's comments in January suggest he will believe it came from the palace.

Harry told Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes: "They will feed or have a conversation with the correspondent. And that correspondent will literally be spoon-fed information and write the story.

"And at the bottom of it they will say that they've reached out to Buckingham Palace for comment. But the whole story is Buckingham Palace commenting."

Another interesting aspect of the latest dispute is that it comes after Harry and Charles reportedly had a heart to heart prior to the duke confirming his attendance at the coronation, according to the Telegraph.

Given that Harry will almost certainly interpret the story as a palace leak, it may well feed into his perception that private attempts by him to heal relations frequently end up in the media.

He told Cooper in January: "Every single time I've tried to do it privately there have been briefings and leakings and planting of stories against me and my wife. You know, the family motto is never complain, never explain. But it's just a motto. And it doesn't really hold."

Jack Royston is chief royal correspondent for Newsweek, based in London. You can find him on Twitter at @jack_royston and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.

Do you have a question about King Charles III, William and Kate, Meghan and Harry, or their family that you would like our experienced royal correspondents to answer? Email royals@newsweek.com. We'd love to hear from you.