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Thomas Markle spoke out about his daughter Meghan Markle and son-in-law Prince Harry after their explosive interview with CBS on Sunday, March 7.
The former director of photography, 76, addressed his daughter’s story about her 22-month-old son Archie’s skin color while appearing on Good Morning Britain on Tuesday, March 9.
“I have great respect for the royals, and I don’t think the British royal family are racist at all,” Thomas said. “I don’t think the British are racist. I think Los Angeles is racist, California is a racist, but I don’t think the Brits are.”
During Sunday’s interview, Meghan, 39, claimed that someone in the royal family had raised “concerns” over how “dark” her first child’s skin would be when he was born in May 2019.
“The thing about what color will the baby be or how dark will the baby be, I’m guessing and hoping it’s just a dumb question from somebody,” Thomas speculated on Tuesday. “It could be somebody asked a stupid question rather than being a total racist.”
Thomas’ comments came after Meghan, 39, spoke candidly on Sunday about her fallout with her father ahead of her marriage to Harry, 36, in May 2018. Their initial friction came after her father’s paparazzi photo scandal the same month, which led to his absence from their nuptials.
The former TV lighting director has since slammed the royal family on numerous occasions, once comparing Meghan’s in-laws to a “cult.” The drama led to the Tig founder having no communication with her father. When Meghan and Harry announced their decision to step back from their senior royal duties in January 2020, Thomas chose to support the royal family, who he had bashed for years. “I’ll just simply say I’m disappointed,” he exclusively told Us Weekly at the time of his daughter’s choice.
“I grieve a lot,” Meghan, who is pregnant with her second child, said during the tell-all interview on Sunday. “I mean, I’ve lost my father. I lost a baby. I nearly lost my name. I mean, there’s the loss of identity. But I’m still standing, and my hope for people in the takeaway from this is to know that there’s another side.”
The former Suits star, who shares Archie with Harry, explained that from the moment she started seeing Harry she was given a “very clear directive,” as was her family and friends, to “always say, ‘No comment’” to the press. The request is something that her father, however, chose to ignore, causing a rift between him and the royal couple.
“There was such an obsession about anything in my world, including tracking down my parents. And I did everything I could to protect both of them in that media frenzy,” Meghan said in a bonus clip from Sunday’s interview, which aired on CBS This Morning on Monday, March 8. “But for over a year, the U.K. tabloids were trying to find my dad, offering people so much money to try to find his address. Once they did, I remember being told, there was a huge headline, like, ‘We found him!’ or ‘We’ve got him!’”
She claimed that from that point on, the tabloids “moved into the apartment next door and across from him. [They] descended on this small town, were giving him gifts. The whole thing brings us to where we are today.”
When asked if she felt betrayed after learning that her father was working with the U.K. tabloids, Meghan admitted she didn’t know if she was “comfortable” discussing that part of her life. She did, however, detail the photo scandal, saying, “if we’re going to use the word betrayal” it would be when he didn’t tell her the truth when she confronted him about the scandal.
“We called my dad, and I asked him, and he said, ‘No, absolutely not.’ I said, you know, the institution has never intervened for anything for us, but they can try to go in and kill this story,” she recalled. “But if they do this once, we’re not going to be able to use that same leverage to protect our kids one day.”
At the time Thomas claimed he hadn’t talked to the paparazzi, which was not true. “I said, ‘We won’t be able to protect our own kids one day.’ I said, ‘I just need you to tell me. If you tell me the truth, we can help,’” Meghan said. “And he wasn’t able to do that. And that for me has really resonated, especially now as a mother.”
She continued: “And also me saying just full stop, ‘If we use this to protect you, we won’t be able to protect our own children one day, well, I’m talking about your grandchildren’ … I look at Archie, I think about this child … I genuinely can’t imagine doing anything to intentionally cause pain to my child. I can’t imagine it. So it’s hard for me to reconcile that.”
Meghan pointed out that her mother, Doria Ragland, towed the line and didn’t speak to the press. “Everyone has accountability. They hunted my mom down. You never heard her say a word,” she revealed. “She’s remained in silent dignity for four years watching me go through this.”
The couple also discussed where they stand with Harry’s family, with the former military pilot saying, he “loves” his brother, Prince William, “to bits” before noting they are “on different paths.” Harry admitted “there’s a lot to work through” when it comes to his father, Prince Charles, revealing he felt “really let down” by how he has been treated by his dad since the family moved to the U.S.
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