Royal O

My sister visited this week and wanted to watch Oprah Winfrey's interview with the sort-of royals Prince Harry and his wife, the American actress Meghan Markle. Once upon a time they were the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and I have no idea if they still are, but I know that Oprah thinks she can make some money if she interviews them and that was good enough for CBS.

Lots of people have written about the substance or lack thereof in Meghan's claim that racist attitudes were expressed towards her and her at-the-time unborn son, Archie. Meghan's mother is African-American. Sundry sordid family details were also offered by both husband and wife, and they also detailed the stress their situation put on them, Meghan confessing that she contemplated self-harm or suicide.

I have no way of knowing if any of this is true, but I will say that I find some of it more plausible than do many folks who've commented. Listening to "Harry and Meghan," I get the impression that I am listening to two medium-bright people whose upbringing did not give them many tools to develop much resilience in the face of pressure and stress. Remember, resilience doesn't mean just shrugging those things off. It can also mean recognizing being overwhelmed and asking for help.

Meghan's estrangement from her paternal family highlights her father's inadequacy in many aspects of that role. Harry's loss of his mother at a young age and the strong evidence that his father is a twit suggest he didn't have a much better time. So it is entirely plausible to me that Meghan did not realize just how evil the British tabloid press are and that the primary Buckingham Palace strategy towards its excesses is to ignore them as though they do not exist. Her claim that she was not protected from them indicates she expected the worst stuff to be countered and quashed and she did not understand that the Palace prefers to pretend that there are no roaches in this particular room. In either event, the evil coverage did get to her and I find it plausible she felt there were no options.

I also find it plausible that Harry, who from his youth has been told how harmful this same tabloid press was towards his mother and how their pursuit of her was essentially responsible for her death, was extremely worried when he saw what looked like history repeating with his wife. I am not certain why they both claim they were told no help was possible -- Harry himself, with his brother and sister-in-law, recorded a public service announcement a couple of years ago detailing the importance of counseling that suggested both brothers had received this help following their mother's death.

I say this not to defend either of them, but to explain why I felt a little sympathy towards two people who, although they should be happy by now, can't let enough of the the hard parts of their past go to be that way. Either way, the interview is past, I have vented and I'll be able to go on with my life.

My one lingering question will be if either of the former royals realized just how much they were used by Winfrey. She certainly cooperated with their desire to project a certain image -- her "pressing" Harry on his claims that he was "trapped" in his royal role was less a matter of skepticism than a calculated invitation to elaborate on what he wanted people to believe about his life. But she probably gained more for herself than anything else, and she did manage the absolutely ghastly question of asking Harry if he had watched the Netflix fictionalization of his family, The Crown, the most recent season of which depicts the breakdown of his parents' marriage, their respective affairs and his grandparents' supposed insensitivity to them. If nothing else, Oprah's gotta Oprah.