Oprah Winfrey has revealed that her landmark interview with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry lasted three and a half hours before it was edited for television.
Rewatching the 2021 conversation for a new Vanity Fair retrospective, Winfrey said the Duke and Duchess of Sussex did not receive her questions in advance. She had only warned them that she intended to address everything surrounding their departure from royal life.
Winfrey also revisited one of the interview’s most widely shared exchanges. After Meghan said she had become silent while working as a member of the royal family, Winfrey interrupted with a pointed clarification: “Were you silent or were you silenced?”
Meghan answered, “The latter.” Five years later, Winfrey said the follow-up was not rehearsed and was intended to establish exactly what Meghan was alleging.
The Interview Lasted Three and a Half Hours
“They didn’t know, obviously, anything that I was going to ask them,” Winfrey recalled. She said she had told the couple beforehand, “I’m going to try to cover everything.”
The conversation was filmed in Montecito, California, and aired in March 2021 after Harry and Meghan had stepped away from their roles as senior working royals and moved to the United States. Meghan initially spoke with Winfrey alone before Harry joined them.
The final broadcast covered Meghan’s mental health, the lack of support she said she received within the institution and the couple’s relationships with members of the royal family. Harry discussed tensions with his father and brother, while Meghan addressed the pre-wedding disagreement involving Kate Middleton.
Harry and Meghan also said there had been conversations within the royal family about how dark their son Archie’s skin might be. They declined to identify the person involved, and Winfrey later clarified that the couple had told her it was neither Queen Elizabeth II nor Prince Philip.
Why Winfrey Asked Whether Meghan Had Been ‘Silenced’
Before Winfrey’s interruption, Meghan had been discussing the contrast between her earlier advocacy for women using their voices and her experience after joining the royal family. “I’ve advocated for so long for women to use their voice,” Meghan said during the original CBS interview. “And then, I was silent.”
Winfrey said she wanted to determine whether Meghan was describing a personal decision to remain quiet or direct instructions that prevented her from speaking publicly.
“I wanted to be clear,” Winfrey explained in the retrospective. She said the question was designed to prevent later confusion over whether Meghan had been speaking figuratively or claiming that people had told her not to talk.
Winfrey laughed while recreating the emphatic hand gesture that accompanied the question, admitting that she did not know where the movement came from and did not believe she had used it again.
Winfrey Revisited ‘You Get a Car’ and a Landmark Abuse Episode
The Vanity Fair retrospective also returned Winfrey to the September 2004 episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show in which every audience member received a new Pontiac G6.
Winfrey explained that the audience members initially believed only one of their gift boxes contained a key that would start the car. She began shouting, “You get a car!” to make clear that everyone in the studio had won, creating a line that became one of television’s most enduring memes.
She also revisited a 2010 episode featuring 200 men who had survived sexual abuse. The participants held childhood photographs showing themselves at the ages when they were abused, confronting the shame and isolation many had carried into adulthood.
Winfrey, who has spoken publicly about surviving childhood sexual abuse, said her talk show eventually helped release her from shame that had defined much of her life. She described the program’s original mission as showing people that they were not alone.