Omid Scobie, a reporter covering the royal family, who is believed to be a close personal friend of Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, after penning a flattering biography of the pair’s “Megxit” decision, admits Meghan “may have been wrong” when she accused the royal family of refusing to give her son, Archie, a royal title because of “racism.”
In an interview with Oprah Winfrey, Markle accused an unnamed member of the royal family of expressing concern about Archie’s skin tone and implied that the monarchy’s institutionalized racism prevented Archie from being “Prince Archie.”
“How did they explain to you that your son, the great-grandson of the Queen, wasn’t going to be a prince? You certainly must have had some conversations with Harry about it and had your own suspicions as to why they didn’t want to make Archie a prince. Why do you think that is?” Winfrey asked Markle, leading into whether Markle believed the decision was motivated by Archie’s mixed-race heritage. “What are those thoughts? Why do you think that is? Do you think it was because of his race? And I know that’s a loaded question, but —”
“I can give you an honest answer,” Markle responded. “In those months when I was pregnant, all around the same time, so we had in tandem the conversation of, ‘He won’t be given security, he’s not gonna be given a title,’ and also concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he’s born.”
Meghan expressed shock at the “idea of the first member of color in this family not being titled in the same way that other grandchildren would be” and claimed that the title was “not their right to take away.”
But, as The Daily Wire reported, “the rule barring great-grandchildren of the sovereign, in this case, Queen Elizabeth, from being titled dates back much further than Archie’s birth. In fact, the rule goes back to King George V who, in 1917 — more than 100 years before Archie was born — who issued ‘letters patent’ — a royal order — decreeing that just children and grandchildren [in direct line for the throne] would be able to use ‘prince’ or ‘princess’ and the honorary ‘HRH,’ or ‘his or her royal highness.'”
Archie was never going to be a prince at birth, regardless of his skin color. Only his cousins, Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis, who are in direct line of succession to the throne, would bear that title.
Now, Scobie, who has frequent discussions with Harry and Meghan, says Meghan was “perhaps” “wrong.”
“If we are only going by what Meghan said to Oprah and what the palace have said so far about the situation with Archie, perhaps one can assume that Meghan was wrong in her interpretation of it,” Scobie reportedly told a Discovery Channel journalist in an interview for an upcoming documentary on the Winfrey Interview.
Scobie quickly reversed direction though, claiming that many of the official discussions about Archie’s title were private.
“But we also know that there is much more to this story that we don’t know about,” Scobie said.
The “royal title” claim is one of several that were debunked in the days following the pair’s bombshell interview. According to Australia’s The New Daily, it also appears Meghan was bending the truth when she claimed the royal family stripped her of her passport, identification, and keys given that she traveled frequently with Harry and to the United States for a posh baby shower in New York City and that Meghan did no research on the royal family before dating Prince Harry.
Related: Meghan Claims Racism Prevented Archie From Being A Prince. The Rule Barring His Title Dates To 1917.