In March 2021, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle gave a bombshell interview to Oprah Winfrey. While the runaway royal duo made many explosive claims, the biggest bombshell was that a member of the Royal Family expressed concern over their unborn child’s skin color. This led to intense speculation about who the racist royal culprit could be.
Now, an unauthorized biography claims that Camilla made a racist joke about Archie’s hair before he was born. But is she the person Harry and Meghan alluded to in their interview with Oprah? Or could the source of their claim be Prince Charles himself? Let’s unravel this mystery.
Camilla’s alleged racist remark
Information about Camilla’s alleged racist remark comes from Tom Bower’s unauthorized biography Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the War Between the Windsors. The book came out in England on July 21 and claims to offer insider knowledge about much of the Royal Family.
In the book, Bowers provides a look at what was going on inside Buckingham Palace after Harry and Meghan went public with their relationship. As Gawker reports, Bower presents Harry’s version of a story where he met with Charles and Camilla over several weeks at Clarence House.
There, conversion primarily focused on three topics (some more serious than others). The first was the joking suggestion that Meghan should stick to acting (a royal way, we think, of saying “don’t quit your day job”). The second topic, perhaps more serious, was that Scotland Yard wasn’t going to be able to provide 24/7 protection for Meghan at all times.
The third topic, according to Harry, was that “someone speculated about what his future child would ‘look like.’” According to Bower, “one version” of this narrative places the blame on Camilla, who allegedly said, “Wouldn’t it be funny if your child had ginger Afro hair?”
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How did Meghan and Harry react?
If the above account is accurate, it seems that Camilla thought her comment was a funny joke. But how did Meghan and Harry react? Allegedly, they had very different responses to this comment.
According to Newsweek, Bower wrote that, at first, “Harry laughed” at the comment. Whether this was genuine laughter or playing along with his mother-in-law, it’s impossible to say.
However, Meghan had a very different and much angrier reaction. Bower claims, “Subsequently, Meghan’s reaction to that conversation turned Harry’s amusement into fury.”
Bower’s read on this alleged comment and reaction is that Harry was happy to, at the bare minimum, play along with Camilla’s joke. But Meghan’s anger at the comment was so intense that it transformed Harry’s initial opinion.
But is Camilla the allegedly racist royal Meghan referred to in the infamous Oprah interview?
The Oprah connection
Camilla’s alleged “afro ginger” comment only adds to the controversy of possible racism in the Royal Family following Harry and Meghan’s bombshell interview with Oprah in March 2021.
There, Meghan revealed that someone in the Royal Family expressed “concern” during her pregnancy about “how dark [Archie’s] skin might be when he’s born.” While Harry later told Oprah that the person who made this comment was not one of his grandparents, he did not bother to clear Charles or Camilla’s name.
According to Bower’s book, the comment about Archie’s skin indeed took place in “an exchange in his father’s house with Charles and Camilla” (via Newsweek). “Five years later Harry reinterpreted what he knew was innocent speculation as a doom-laden finale to relations with Charles and Camilla: ‘Like, there were some real obvious signs before we even got married that this was going to be really hard.'”
As a biographer, Bower maintains that everything in his book can be verified, and he claims that Meghan felt Camilla’s remark about Archie’s hair was “racist.” However, a royal source told Newsweek that the allegation Camilla made the remark is “nonsense.”
Furthermore, according to a rival biographer, it wasn’t Camilla that made the racist remark Harry and Meghan discussed with Oprah!
RELATED: Are Harry & Meghan Planning A Second Oprah Interview To Repair Their Image?
Did Prince Charles actually make the racist remark?
As Newsweek reports, the biography in question is Brothers and Wives by Christopher Andersen. In this book, rather than pinning any racist commentary on Camilla, Andersen places the blame squarely on Prince Charles himself. Furthermore, Andersen claims that Harry did not hear the alleged racist remarks firsthand, but picked them up through gossip.
Allegedly, the racist remarks began with Charles asking Camilla what she thought Harry and Meghan’s children would look like. To this, the book claims Camilla responded, “Well, absolutely gorgeous, I’m certain.” Charles reportedly went on to make things worse by specifying, “I mean, what do you think their children’s complexion might be?”
Of course, a spokesperson for Clarence House dismissed this story with a vengeance, saying, “This is fiction and not worth further comment.”
Ultimately, despite multiple biographies tackling this sticky subject, we may never know if Charles and Camilla actually made any racist comments while Meghan was pregnant with Archie.
That is, unless Harry decides to reveal what really happened in his upcoming memoir, due in late 2022, as Bower believes he will!