Meghan Markle opened up about why she and Prince Harry are speaking out now in a new preview clip of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s upcoming interview with Oprah Winfrey.
Gayle King introduced the video on “CBS This Morning” Friday, saying it would show why Meghan and Harry “did not feel free to speak candidly sooner.”
The clip shows Winfrey approaching the subject with Meghan: “I called you either or February or March 2018 before the wedding asking, ‘Would you please get me an interview,’ and you said, ‘I’m sorry, it’s not the right time.’”
“I remember that conversation very well. I wasn’t even allowed to have the conversation with you personally, right?” Meghan answered. “There had to be people from the comms [team] sitting there.”
“There were other people in the room when I was having that conversation,” Winfrey said. “You turned me down nicely and said ‘Perhaps there will be another time, when there’s the right time.’”
The media mogul gently pressed: “What is right about this time?”
“Well, so many things. That we’re on the other side of a lot of, a lot of life experience that’s happened,” Meghan said. “And also that we have the ability to make our own choices in a way that I couldn’t have said yes to you then, that wasn’t my choice to make.”
“As an adult who lived a really independent life to then go into this construct that is, um, different than I think what people imagine it to be, it’s really liberating to be able to have the right and the privilege in some ways to be able to say, ‘Yes … I’m ready to talk.’”
Winfrey added: “And to say it for yourself. And not to have to consult with anybody at this point.”
The duchess responded: “Yeah, to be able to just make a choice on your own. And just to be able to speak for yourself.”
In another clip from the interview released earlier this week, Winfrey asked the duchess: “How do you feel about the palace hearing you speak your truth today?”
“I don’t know how they could expect that after all of this time we would still just be silent if there is an active role that The Firm is playing in perpetuating falsehoods about us,” Meghan said in the teaser, released on Wednesday.
“And if that comes with risk of losing things, I mean ― there’s a lot that has been lost already,” she added.
CBS told HuffPost in a statement earlier this month that Oprah speaks with Meghan about “stepping into life as a Royal, marriage, motherhood, philanthropic work to how she is handling life under intense public pressure,” during the interview.
Later in the interview, Meghan is joined by Prince Harry, and the two discuss “their move to the United States and their future hopes and dreams for their expanding family,” CBS said.
The two-hour prime time special is set to air on Sunday at 8 p.m. on CBS.
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