Meghan ‘baby skin colour’ comment was not about Archie claims royal biographer

The Royal Family's skin colour slur was made well before Meghan Markle was pregnant, a royal expert claims.

According to historian and royal biographer Robert Lacey, claims the ugly comments made surrounding the Duke and Duchess's children were not specific to Archie.

In his new book, Lacey unpicks the Sussexes' bombshell Oprah Winfrey interview earlier this year, including an accusation of racism made by a family member regarding their firstborn son.

The differing accounts given by Meghan and Prince Harry about how dark their baby's son skin might be, left the author questioning the timing of the remark.

During the interview, The Duchess of Sussex claimed: "Concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he's born" happened "in those months when [I] was pregnant" with Archie.

But later when Prince Harry was asked about the exchange he appeared to suggest he heard the alleged slur from a royal figure earlier before he and Meghan got married.

Lacey claims it is clear that while there may have been a comment or a conversation about race, it took place before Prince Harry and Meghan were even engaged, and therefore could not have been specifically about Archie or any title he may one day have.

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After Oprah asked Meghan: "Why they didn't want to make Archie a prince," Meghan replied: "I can give you an honest answer.

"In those months when I was pregnant, all around this same time… we have in tandem the conversation of 'He won't be given security. He's not going to be given a title' and also concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he is born."

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Oprah immediately interjected, and said: "What? There is a conversation? Hold on. Hold up. Hold up. Stop right now. There's a conversation with you?"

"With Harry," Meghan clarified.

Lacey claims: "When questioned by Oprah, Meghan admitted that no one in the royal family had ever asked her personally about the colour of Archie's skin – neither then, when she was pregnant, nor at any time.

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"When Oprah later put it to him [Harry] directly, he almost shrugged his shoulders. Pushed for details, he admitted: 'That was right at the beginning…right at the beginning.'

"The skin colour conversation, as Harry described it, had actually taken place before the couple had even got engaged, at quite an early stage of their relationship – and it had been in general terms."

She went on: "The question had not been asked specifically about Archie, but about any babies that Harry and Meghan might possibly produce. 'Yeah,' said Harry, repeating the question that some unnamed person had put to him years earlier – 'What will the kids look like?'

"'What will the kids look like?' repeated Oprah, emphasising the plural, and the striking difference between Meghan's reporting of an Archie-based conversation and what Harry was now telling her.

"Nobody had had 'conversations' with Meghan about Archie while she was pregnant, nor asked her 'how dark his skin might be when he is born'. She made that up – though that is not to say that it did not matter.

"The problem lay in Meghan's having linked the question of her son's skin tone to the question of his royal status," claims Lacey.

Meghan refused to name who allegedly made the comment about Archie's skin colour, but said it was not the Queen or Prince Philip.

After the accusations came to light, Prince William insisted: "We are very much not a racist family."

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