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Meghan Markle's father dismisses her racist allegation against the royal family: The whole thing about colour is bulls**t

WION Web Team
New DelhiUpdated: Mar 09, 2021, 06:09 PM IST
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Photograph:(Twitter)

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In an explosive interview with Oprah Winfrey on Sunday, Meghan Markel alleged her son, Archie, had been denied the title of prince because there were concerns within the royal family about "about how dark his skin might be when he`s born".

Meghan Markle's father, Thomas Markle, on Tuesday, responded to his daughter's allegations against the British royal family and their racist remark on her child. The senior Markle termed it as just a 'dumb question' and said he did not think the royal family was racist. 

In an explosive interview with Oprah Winfrey on Sunday, Meghan Markel alleged her son, Archie, now aged one had been denied the title of prince because there were concerns within the royal family about "about how dark his skin might be when he`s born".

Reacting to the statement, Thomas Markle told ITV, "I have great respect for the royals, and I don`t think the British royal family are racist at all. 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."

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"The thing about what colour will the baby be or how dark will the baby be; I`m guessing and hoping it`s just a dumb question from somebody ... It could be somebody asked a stupid question. Rather than being a total racist."

"This whole thing about colour and how dark the baby is is bulls**t," Markle said. He thought that the comment should be investigated.

Markle and his daughter have been estranged since her marriage to Prince Harry in 2018. Markle, a former lighting director for US TV soaps and sitcoms, pulled out of the wedding days beforehand after undergoing heart surgery.

He said his daughter had let him down while he was ill.

"I also feel that she let me down," Markle said. "I was in a hospital bed the last time we talked and I never heard from them again - they didn`t care if I died."

Asked about the interview Meghan and Harry gave to Oprah Winfrey, Markle said "they went way over the top," and should have waited, considering that Queen Elizabeth`s husband Prince Philip was in the hospital.

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"They should have waited considering the queen`s age and Philip`s age," he said.

In May 2018, just a week before Meghan and Prince Harry's royal wedding, UK Tabloid The Mail on Sunday had published a report claiming Meghan's father had teamed with the paparazzi to stage photos of himself preparing for his daughter's wedding day.

Meghan, on Sunday, also addressed her 'betrayal' while speaking to Oprah Winfrey, and recalled how the UK media had even hounded her parents in days prior to her wedding. 

She said, "There was such an obsession with 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 added, "But for over a year, the UK 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.' We're talking about someone's father. And from that point, the tabloids, they moved into the apartment next door and across from him, descended on this small town, giving him gifts. The whole thing brings us to where we are today."

"Did it feel like a betrayal, when you found out that your father was working with the tabloids," Oprah asked. 

Meghan replied, "If we're going to use the word betrayal...it's because when I asked him…When we were told by the comms team this is a story that's going to be coming out—which, by the way, the tabloids had apparently known for a month or so and decided to hold until the Sunday before our wedding because they wanted to create drama, which is a really key point in all of this: They don't report the news, they create the news—we called my dad and we asked him, and he said, 'No, absolutely not.'"

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"And I said, 'You know, the Institution has never intervened for anything for us. But they can try to go in and try to kill this story. But if they do this once, we're not going to be able to use that same leverage to protect our own kids one day,'" Meghan had added. 

"So when I said, 'We won't be able to protect our own kids one day,' and I said, 'So, I just need you to tell me. And if you tell me the truth, we can help,' and he wasn't able to do that and that for me has really resonated, especially now as a mother." 

Meghan and Harry are parents to a one-year-old Archie and expecting their second child- a girl- later this year.