Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan Markle give rare joint interview from new home

Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan Markle have given a rare joint interview from their new home.

• Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan Markle have spoken out in a powerful statement as they gave a joint interview from their new home.
• The rare move saw the Duke and Duchess of Sussex speak out on the subject of racism.
• In other royal news (opens in new tab), the Queen (opens in new tab) has reached out with a heartfelt message after a royal acquaintance passed away (opens in new tab).

Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan Markle have spoken out in a powerful statement during a rare joint interview that they gave to mark the start of Black History Month.

Speaking in video call from their new home in Santa Barbara, California, the couple spoke about the racism (opens in new tab) to the Evening Standard (opens in new tab) as they recognised a group of BHM NextGen Trailblazers, including British Vogue editor Edward Enninful, who have challenged prejudice and made a positive contribution to British society.

Admitting that he has learned more about the lack of opportunities for those in BAME communities since meeting his bi-racial wife, Prince Harry said, “ I wasn’t aware of so many of the issues and so many of the problems within the UK and also globally as well. I thought I did but I didn’t.”

“You know, when you go in to a shop with your children and you only see white dolls, do you even think: ‘That’s weird, there is not a black doll there?’ And I use that as just one example of where we as white people don’t always have the awareness of what it must be like for someone else of a different coloured skin, of a black skin, to be in the same situation as we are where the world that we know has been created by white people for white people.”

“It is not about pointing the finger, it is not about blame,” he added. “I will be the first person to say, again, this is about learning. And about how we can make it better.

“I think it is a really exciting time in British culture and British history, and in world culture. This is a real moment that we should be grasping and actually celebrating. Because no one else has managed to do this before us.”

Speaking about how the recent Black Lives Matter protests (opens in new tab) have been “inflammatory for a lot of people”, added Duchess Meghan, “But when there is just peaceful protest and when there is the intention of just wanting community and just wanting the recognition of equality, then that is a beautiful thing.

“While it has been challenging for a lot of people certainly having to make this reckoning of historical significance that has got people to the place that they are, that is uncomfortable for people. We recognise that. It is uncomfortable for us.”

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex also spoke out in an article they penned for the Evening Standard (opens in new tab), in which they wrote, ‘For as long as structural racism exists, there will be generations of young people of colour who do not start their lives with the same equality of opportunity as their white peers.

‘And for as long as that continues, untapped potential will never get to be realised.’