Image source, Getty Images

Meghan Markle, 39, made her name as an actress, campaigner and blogger before marrying Harry and becoming the Duchess of Sussex.

She was best known for playing lawyer Rachel Zane in US TV drama Suits.

She has been a longtime advocate for women's rights, working with the United Nations on gender equality and receiving a standing ovation at a UN women's conference for a stirring speech on International Women's Day in 2015.

In September 2011, Meghan wed film producer Trevor Engelson, but the pair divorced two years later.

When she and Harry got married in May 2018, she gave up her acting career and immersed herself in the life of a royal. In 2019, she gave birth to her and Harry’s son Archie. One of the revelations from the Oprah interview is that their second child, due in the summer, is a girl.

But soon after her move to the UK, it became clear that both Harry and Meghan were becoming increasingly disenchanted with the expectations that came with their royal lives.

They’ve brought various legal actions against the press and Meghan previously said it had been a "struggle" becoming a new mum amid intense media scrutiny.

She, Harry and baby Archie now live in California, where her mother also lives.

Read Meghan's full profile here.

Image source, Getty Images

The Duke of Sussex, 36, grew up in the media spotlight - from a young royal dealing with his mother's death, through his partying teenage years, to his career in the military.

Prince Harry trained at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and went on to become a lieutenant in the Army, serving as a helicopter pilot.

During his 10 years in the Armed Forces, Capt Wales, as he became known, saw active service in Afghanistan twice, in 2012 to 2013 as an Apache helicopter co-pilot and gunner. He left the Army in 2015 and now focuses on charitable work, including conservation in Africa and organising the Invictus Games for injured members of the armed forces.

He has been a Counsellor of State since his 21st birthday and stood in for the Queen on official duties.

Prince Harry married Meghan Markle on 19 May, 2018, at Windsor Castle. In January 2020, the royal couple said they would step back as "senior" royals and divide their time between the UK and North America. They said they intended to "work to become financially independent".

Just over a year later, Buckingham Palace confirmed the couple would not be returning to royal duties, and would give up their honorary military appointments and royal patronages.

Read more about Prince Harry's life here.

Former Wales rugby star Gareth Thomas has tweeted a picture of himself and Prince Harry, external in an expression of support following the Oprah Winfrey interview.

In 2019, Prince Harry praised Thomas for speaking about how his HIV diagnosis inspired him to educate others.

In a tweet this evening, Thomas wrote: "MY definition of an amazing human being, is someone who is there for you when you are at your lowest.

"He was, and is still there. My choice is to LOVE the man I know, and the decisions he makes."

Here's a clip from the conversation the two men had in 2019 about Thomas's work as an advocate for people with HIV:

Image source, HARPO PRODUCTIONS - JOE PUGLIESE

If you're just joining us and trying to catch up on the almost 24 hours of Royal Family developments, here's a summary of the key points.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have been interviewed by Oprah Winfrey in a two-hour CBS primetime special. The TV special drew more than 17 million viewers in the US - and will be broadcast in the UK on Monday night on ITV at 21:00 GMT.

Some of the key revelations in the interview include:

• Meghan said Harry had been asked by an unnamed family member "how dark" their son Archie's skin might be
• Oprah later said the family member was not the Queen or the Duke of Edinburgh
• Meghan said she found life within the Royal Family so difficult that at times she "didn't want to be alive any more"
• Harry said racism from the tabloid press that filtered into the rest of society was a "large part" of why he and his wife left the UK
• The couple announced their second child, due in the summer, is a girl

There's been global reaction to the much-anticipated interview. Bernice King, daughter of the civil rights leader Martin Luther King, said royalty "is not a shield from the devastation and despair of racism", adding: "I'm grateful that Meghan Markle is still here."

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson declined to comment on Meghan and Harry's allegation of the comment about Archie's skin colour - except to say he "always had the highest admiration for the Queen and the unifying role she plays".

The PM added: "When it comes to matters to do with the Royal Family, the right thing for prime ministers to say is nothing."

Sir Kenneth Olisa, the first British-born black Lord-Lieutenant in the country, who is the Queen's representative in London, has said members of the Royal Family are "universally charming" and are "driving national identity and unity".

Sir Kenneth, who was chosen for the role by the Queen, told Radio 4’s PM he has spent lots of time with senior royals, adding: "I think we need to keep a focus here on what's in the best interest of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth and use that to steer us going forward."

Asked about the extent to which racism is a problem in British society, Sir Kenneth, 69, said the Black Lives Matter movement showed "we might have travelled in the right direction" over his lifetime, but "not at sufficient speed".

"There's a lot still to be done, no doubt, to just make sure that in the UK we access all the talent that's available and our citizens all feel part of something," he said.

"I just hope this current spat doesn't spoil that momentum."

Misan Harriman, the photographer who took Harry and Meghan's pregnancy photos, has just tweeted a previously-unseen picture to celebrate the couple announcing that they're expecting a baby girl.

In the picture, Harry and Meghan are cuddling their son Archie.

The announcement, Harriman says, is "wonderful news to celebrate on International Women's Day!"

Julie Montagu, an American who became Lady Hinchingbrooke when she married into the Earl of Sandwich's family, says she knows how Meghan feels.

"I can definitely relate to Meghan, particularly when she said that going into it, she didn't know anything," she said in an interview with BBC World News.

"It's true as an American that we do look at Royal life as, really, a fairy tale... you don't really know [what it's like] until you're in it."

Image source, Getty Images

In their tell-all interview with Oprah Winfrey, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have revealed that - after they were cut off by the Royal Family - it was US media mogul Tyler Perry who provided Harry and Meghan with a home and security in California in 2020.

So who is Tyler Perry and how did he become so successful?

The 51-year-old is a prolific film-maker, comedian, actor, producer, and screenwriter.

His movies and TV shows have made him a household name in the US, especially among African Americans.

Read more about him here.

Image source, Getty Images

Meghan's expectations of what life would be like when she joined the Royal Family were "wildly out of whack", a biographer of Princess Diana has said.

Tina Brown, former editor of the New Yorker and author of The Diana Chronicles, watched the interview in the US before speaking to BBC Radio 4's PM.

"One of the things that Meghan kept saying is that she had absolutely no idea when she married Harry what was really awaiting her," she said.

"To which I would say, 'Meghan, it was all there to be seen - all there'. It's been reported a thousands times how incredibly hard it is to join the Royal Family."

"I definitely think that this interview poses the question about the whole system, whether it's just unreasonable to expect a modern liberated woman of today to enter this family and simply behave as if it's still 1925," she said.

Brown said some members of the Royal Family, like the Duchess of Cambridge, have "found ways to sort of live in it" - and that Meghan could have been an "amazing asset" to the Royal Family but was not part of it for long enough to "establish her own circle".

"When you have [two people] as charismatic, frankly, as Meghan and Harry, who are actually serving in the number two spot, they're bound to get more press and that is bound to upset the pecking order, in a sense, of that system," she added.

Image source, Reuters

White House press secretary Jen Psaki has praised Harry and Meghan's "courage" in comments on behalf of US President Joe Biden.

"For anyone to come forward and speak about their own struggles with mental health and tell their own personal story, that takes courage," Psaki told reporters today.

However, she added that Harry and Meghan are now "private citizens", and that "we aren't going to provide additional commentary from here on behalf of the president".

"We have a strong and abiding relationship with the British people and a special partnership with the government of the United Kingdom on a range of issues, and that will continue," Psaki said.

Image source, PA Media

A huge number of Americans watched Oprah Winfrey interview Harry and Meghan last night - 17.14 million of them, to be exact.

According to the figures from CBS, which aired the special, these are the highest ratings for a non-sports programme on the US's broadcast networks this season - with the exception of the premiere of a show that aired right after the Super Bowl on 7 February.

Critics in the US were full of praise, too. David Zurawik, TV critic for the Baltimore Sun, wrote that it showed "Oprah is still the queen of the TV interview".

Meanwhile, CNN editor Saeed Ahmed tweeted, external about the interview's significance.

He said: "Two things stood out to me from the #OprahMeghanHarry interview: Tyler Perry offered them security when the royal family wouldn’t. Oprah allowed them to tell their story when the royal family wouldn’t.

"A Black man gave them a home. A Black woman gave them a platform."

Image source, MISAN HARRIMAN

Harry and Meghan's gender reveal got a bit lost as bombshell upon bombshell were dropped during the interview.

But if you missed it - they're having a girl.

Harry tells Oprah Winfrey it feels "amazing" and says he's "just grateful".

He says: "To have any child, any one or any two would have been amazing but to have a boy and then a girl. What more can you ask for? But now you know now we've got our family. We've got you know, the four of us and our two dogs."

Meghan says Archie's sister is due in the summer.

Here are 12 things we learned from the interview.

Earlier we told you Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has said Meghan's allegations of racism should be taken seriously.

Speaking during a visit to a school in London, he said: "We'll have to see how the institution reacts to this."

Image source, Getty Images

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex's explosive Oprah Winfrey interview was significant for many reasons - and one of them was the number of times Prince Harry's mum, Princess Diana, was mentioned.

The Duchess said she spoke to one of Diana's friends about the pressures of joining the Royal Family, "because it's like who else could understand what it's actually like on the inside?"

Similarities were drawn between their experiences of being in the Royal Family.

Prince Harry said he had feared history was "repeating itself" before he and Meghan stepped back from their roles as senior royals.

Read in full here.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson refused to comment on "Royal Family matters" during a No 10 coronavirus briefing.

Asked about the Sussexes' interview, Johnson said he had "spent a long time not commenting" and that he "didn't intend to depart from that today".

Jonny Dymond
BBC royal correspondent

Image source, Reuters

Traditionally the Palace protects the family by drawing a curtain between the public, formal stuff and the personal stuff; its refusal to comment on the personal is a strategic interpretation of the family's maxim - "never explain, never complain".

The public/personal divide has always been an artifice. Royals get married in front of tens of millions of people, have state funerals, release photos on birthdays and anniversaries, exchange insights into their lives in return for easy-going and generous coverage.

But the divide, however often disregarded, remains the guiding principle of the family's formal relationship with the outside world. Now the contradictions that spring from the mix of personal and public are playing out.

Read more from Jonny here.

Harry Cole from the Sun says Britain has been portrayed as an "unwelcoming and racist country" in the wake of Harry and Meghan's interview. He asks the prime minister whether that has "damaged this nation" and if he believes that "the Royal Family, Queen aside, is racist".

The PM says: "I congratulate you on your very determined attempt to involve me in this story more than I've said already.

"But I really think that when it comes to matters to do with the Royal Family, the right thing for prime ministers to say is nothing - and nothing is the thing I propose to say today about that particular matter."

The BBC's Ben Wright asks the prime minister during the government coronavirus briefing what he thought of Harry and Meghan's claims about mental health and racism - and whether Buckingham Palace should investigate the allegations.

Boris Johnson says: "I've always had the highest admiration for the Queen and the unifying role that she plays in our country and across the Commonwealth."

He adds: "As for all other matters to do with the Royal Family, I've spent a long time now not commenting on Royal Family matters and I don't intend to depart from that today."

Dean Stott, a friend of Prince Harry, has told the BBC that their bond to the Queen is still there.

Speaking about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's much-anticipated interview with Oprah Winfrey, he said: "He has had more communication with his grandma than he ever has before".

The interview will be broadcast in the UK on Monday night on ITV at 21:00 GMT and on ITV Hub, courtesy of Harpo Productions/CBS.

BBC Radio 5 Live

Caroline Aston, features writer for Majesty Magazine, said she wondered why Meghan did not seek mental health help outside of the palace.

She told BBC Radio 5 Live: "It seems to me that the impression is given that the Duchess of Sussex was forbidden - barred - from seeking professional advice and help because it would rebound badly on the reputation of the Royal family.

"We all know that Princess Diana, who suffered terribly…sought help outside the palace. In other words she went to a mental health professional and we knew about that.

"So what was to stop the Duchess of Sussex doing that?

"She says no one was helping her, but her own husband has spoken of his struggles with mental health. Was he not in a position to guide her and help her over that?"

Listen to the interview here, external or listen to 5 Live on the free BBC Sounds app.