Oprah Winfrey’s groundbreaking interview with the Sussexes was brimming with bombshells, including the moment Meghan Markle was asked if she had been “silent, or were you silenced” – and claiming it was “the latter”.
Meghan opened up about feeling unable to use her voice while she was a working member of the Royal Family, and how much she valued independence.
This moment in the 2021 interview was widely seen as the first time Meghan had opened up about feeling voiceless as a royal, but one writer claims that the Duchess had already expressed this dissatisfaction with being unable to speak up and feeling that her voice was devalued many years beforehand.
Meghan Markle reportedly asked, “Don’t I have a voice?”, at an event with her husband, Prince William, and Princess Kate, Mail on Sunday columnist Sarah Sands claimed in 2020.
The episode is said to have taken place during a broadcast involving the four royals – then dubbed the ‘Fab Four’. The journalist claims the microphone was passed from William to Kate and then to Meghan’s husband Harry.
Sarah states that Meghan then ‘icily’ asked: “Don’t I have a voice?” She apparently muttered the question under her breath and it was heard by those close enough to hear her.
Sarah writes: “Meghan’s ‘ordeal’ in Britain was, to her mind, the subjugation of her voice. A colleague who was at a broadcast by the Royal Family’s short-lived Fab Four how poignant it is to recall the two couples looking so happy together remembers the microphone moving down the line: William…Kate…Harry… Meghan, at the end of the line was disinclined to wait. ‘Don’t I have a voice?’ she asked, icily.”
Referring to Meghan and Harry’s Netflix deal, Sarah adds: “At last, she can be heard, loud and clear. It’s obvious that she feels delighted to be home again.”
The pair announced an unprecedented £130m deal in 2020, which sees them producing documentaries and shows for the US streaming giant. Their six-part documentary exploring their love story and royal exit became the most viewed docu-series on the streaming platform upon its release.
But the couple, who now live in California, reportedly failed to inform the late Queen of their plans. A royal source told The Sun that the monarch was left to find out about the couple’s new venture from her aides. The contact said: “Harry did not inform the Queen about the Netflix deal.”
The source added that “knowing her grandson Harry as she does”, the Queen would have appreciated that the Duke and Duchess could not have been talked out of the plans.
