Prince Harry told Oprah the Royal Family cut him off financially and he struck deals with Netflix and Spotify to pay for security.

Harry says: "Members of my family were suggesting that [Meghan] carries on acting because there's not enough money to pay for her and all this sort of stuff. Like, there was some real obvious signs before we even got married, that this was going to be really hard."

Oprah asks Harry what he would say to people who say they are making "multi-million dollar deals" and called them "money-grabbing royals"?

He says: "Look, from my perspective, all I needed was enough money to pay for security to keep my family safe."

Harry says Netflix and Spotify were "never part of the plan".

"That was suggested by somebody else by the point of where my family literally cut me off financially. And I had to afford security for us."

"But I've got what my mum left me, without that we would not have been able to do this," he says.

Harry says he was cut off financially "in the first quarter of 2020".

This was when pair moved to Los Angeles, where media mogul Tyler Perry offered them his home as a temporary refuge and provided security.

Image source, AFP

In her emotional interview with broadcaster Oprah Winfrey, the Duchess of Sussex said that racism she experienced as a member of the British Royal Family contributed to her having suicidal thoughts.

Racism from within the Royal household and the media had played a part in her feeling she "didn't want to be alive anymore", Meghan said.

Watching in the US, a number of prominent black women said this showed the devastating affect of bigotry.

The impact of "systematic oppression and victimisation are devastating, isolating and all too often lethal," tennis star Serena Williams, who is a friend of Meghan, posted on Instagram., external

Others said Americans were likely to be shocked by Meghan's revelation that concerns were raised about the colour of the couple's baby's skin.

The Royal Family has not yet responded to the claims made by Meghan and Prince Harry.

BBC Radio 5 Live

BBC Radio 5 Live's Your call programme asked listeners what they thought of the interview revelations.

Susan, in High Wycombe, said it was no surprise the couple wanted to get away from the British press.

"Why do people think tabloids can be as unkind as they are, and the people on the receiving end shouldn't mind?"

Robin, in Coventry, said if the couple wanted a quiet life, why had they moved to America.

"They’ll always be, at some stage, in the spotlight," he said.

"We’re only hearing one side of it,” he added. "How much of it is straight, and did happen?"

Nicola, in south Oxfordshire, was sceptical about the allegations made in the interview.

"Are we supposed to believe every single word that's been said in this interview?

"I would like to feel that there can be some evidence as to what's being said.

"Typically the Royal Family don't defend themselves, they maintain a dignified silence," she added.

Listen back on the free BBC Sounds app.

Meghan told Oprah that the Royal Family decided, while she was pregnant, that her son Archie would not have a royal title or security.

At the time of Archie's birth it was reported that Harry and Meghan had themselves chosen not to give him a title.

As the first born son of a duke, Archie could have become Earl of Dumbarton - one of Harry's subsidiary titles - or have been Lord Archie Mountbatten-Windsor.

Meghan told Oprah: "[There's a convention] When you're the grandchild of the monarch, so when Harry's dad becomes King, automatically.

"Archie and our next baby would become prince or princess or whatever they are going to be...And so I think even with that convention, I'm talking about while I was pregnant, they said they want to change the convention for Archie. Hmm. Well, why?"

Oprah asks: "Did you get an answer?"

Meghan replies: "No."

Oprah says the world was told it was Meghan and Harry "who didn't want Archie to have a prince title? So you're telling me that is not true?"

Meghan says: "No. And it's not our decision to make...that is their birthright to then make a choice about."

Oprah says: "Okay, so it feels to me like, things started to change when you and Harry decided that you were not going to take the picture that had been a part of the tradition for years."

She's talking about the tradition of royals posing for pictures as they leave hospital with their newborn.

Meghan says: "We weren't asked to take a picture."

Jonny Dymond
BBC royal correspondent

Image source, PA Media

A source close to the Sussexes has told the BBC that the wedding that Meghan referred to in the "backyard" three days before the public wedding in May 2018 was a private exchange of vows.

They said the couple were legally married on 19 May 2018 during a televised ceremony at Windsor Castle.

Meghan told Oprah: "You know, three days before our wedding, we got married. Ah, no one knows that. But we called the Archbishop and we just said look, this thing, the spectacle, is for the world. But we want our union between us.

"So the vows that we have framed in our room are just the two of us in our backyard with the Archbishop of Canterbury."

Image source, The Late Late Show/ Youtube

Before CBS's Oprah special, Prince Harry already had a less formal interview on camera with James Corden.

Aired last month, Harry joined Corden on an open-top bus travelling through the streets of Los Angeles as the pair discussed Harry and Meghan's decision to swap London for California.

During the unconventional interview, Harry opened up about elements of the family's life and said the UK press was "toxic" and "destroying" his mental health.

He also shared his views on Netflix's The Crown and revealed what the Queen gave Archie for Christmas.

Here are seven things Harry discussed with Corden.

Image source, Getty Images

If you follow news about the Royal Family, you’ll know the past few weeks have been busy.

Here’s a refresher of what’s happened since the interview was announced:

• 16 February: Harry and Meghan’s interview with Oprah is announced
• 17 February: Prince Philip, who is the Queen’s husband and Harry’s grandfather, is taken to hospital as a precaution. He later has an operation for a pre-existing heart condition
• 19 February: Buckingham Palace announces Harry and Meghan will not be returning as working royals (they stepped back as senior royals in March 2020, but this means they would give up their military appointments and official royal links to organisations, known as patronages)
• 26 February: Prince Harry gives an interview to chat show host James Corden, saying the situation created by the British press was “toxic” and “destroying my mental health”
• 1 March: The first two teaser clips from the interview are released.
• 3 March: The Times newspaper publishes a report saying Meghan faced a complaint of bullying from her staff while she was a working royal. Meghan said it was the “latest attack on her character”. Buckingham Palace said it will investigate the claims

• 4 March: A third teaser clip from the interview is published.
• 5 March: Another, longer clip is released in which Meghan says being in the Royal Family was “different than I think what people imagine it to be”

There could be more revelations later as unseen clips from the interview will be shared on US morning television - Oprah Winfrey will be joining CBS show This Morning live when it starts at 07:00 EST (12:00 GMT).

CBS aired last night's interview and owns the company that distributed Winfrey’s daytime talk show.

Reports suggest the network paid between $7m and $9m for the rights to the interview., external

Royal biographer Penny Junor has told BBC Radio 5 Live the two-hour interview was “damaging to everyone in the British Royal family” and she could not understand why the couple gave it when they said they wanted privacy.

"This is hardly private,” she says. "They could have walked away and they could have just kept quiet about it all. Why does the world need to know this?”

She adds that “there’s quite a lot more” that could be said from the palace about the bullying complaints made against the couple from former employees.

She says: "It just becomes a really undignified tit for tat. Does the palace really want to get in to that?”

Image source, Getty Images

Between the bombshell revelations of the interview, there are heartwarming anecdotes of Royal Family life and Meghan is careful to point out the family and what she calls The Firm are different entities.

Meghan says: "It's a family business, right? So there's the family. And then there's the people that are running the institution? Those are two separate things, important to be able to compartmentalise that because the Queen, for example, has always been wonderful to me."

She tells a story about travelling between engagements in the car with the Queen.

"She has a blanket that sits across her, her knees for warmth, and it was chilly. And she was like, Meghan come on, and put it over my knees as well...and it made me think of my grandmother where she's always been warm and inviting and really welcoming."

LA Times reporter Meredith Blake has tweeted:, external "The way Harry and Meghan are very gracious when speaking about individuals, never attack anyone personally, only make allegations about a vaguely defined "they".... is effective."

Royal biographer Anna Pasternak has told BBC Breakfast that the interview "was an absolute exercise in torching the house of Windsor" and that she "came away with a very distasteful taste in my mouth".

She added: "It was a very soft-serving, soapy interview in Meghan's favour - nobody asked her about her relationship with her father, no-one asked her about the astonishing fact that she only had one member of her family at her wedding."

In reference to Harry's claim that Prince Charles had stopped taking his calls, she suggested that it was sometimes "quite healthy not to answer these calls" in such situations.

One woman who followed the interview closely is Stephanie Guerilus, senior editor of The Grio and secretary of the New York Association of Black Journalists.

Discussing the claims made by Meghan that concerns were raised about her baby's skin colour, she told the BBC World Service Newsday programme: "It’s sad that we had to see a woman on national TV say I contemplated suicide and nobody in the palace even bothered to help her - that they were more concerned about what Archie’s skin tone would be. And the fact that her own pain was weaponised against her."

On allegations of bullying by Meghan in the palace, she added: "If there are allegations to be investigated, let’s do our due process. I believe the Royal Family should come together and say enough is enough. There has to be an adult in the room, this cannot keep escalating."

A political and women's rights activist has told BBC Breakfast that many white people will watch Harry and Meghan's interview and "will not see the root cause as racism".

Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu says people want to deny that the Royal Family as an institution is rooted in colonialism, racism and white supremacy.

At the start of Meghan and Harry's interview, Oprah says the couple are not being paid to talk to her and it's being filmed at a friend's house.

Oprah says: "So before we get into it I just wanna make it clear to everybody that even though we're neighbours down there, I'm down the road, you're up the road...We're using a friend's house because they had a very nice, beautiful villa...there has not been an agreement.

"You don't know what I'm going to ask. And there is no subject that's off limits. And you are not getting paid for this interview. All of that's correct?"

Meghan replies: "All of that is correct."

There is "no strand of racism within the Royal household", a former press secretary to the Queen has told the BBC.

Meghan and Harry claimed in their interview with Oprah that a member of the Royal Family had voiced concerns over the colour of their baby Archie's skin.

Charles Anson was the Queen's press secretary between 1990 and 1997, including when Diana gave an interview to Panorama in November 1995.

He says he remembers from his time as a commentator on Harry and Meghan's wedding "an overwhelming sense of welcome for Meghan and their marriage...I don't think there's a strand of racism within the royal household at all."

On Meghan's claim that her calls for help for mental health problems were unanswered by the palace, Anson told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "There is a medical household within the palace structure and I remember it being very responsive both to members of staff and of course for the Queen and members of her family."

He says the couple gave a "very significant interview" which brought up "some issues that need to be dealt with within the family context".

He says he does not think the palace will "rush into making any statement on specific points".

Image source, AFP

We are getting some reaction to the interview from one of the couple's wedding guests. Dean Stott is a former Special Forces soldier who first met Harry on a military training course.

He told BBC Breakfast that Meghan "only had praise for" the Royal Family but the officials and institutions "have come up quite badly in this interview".

Stott says he does not think Harry will regret the interview because "something needed to be said" about misogyny and bigotry within the institution.

"One thing that was quite powerful was his family were trapped within the system, he felt sorry for his brother and his dad...I don't think the family have a voice."

On Harry's claim that Prince Charles had stopped taking his calls, Stott says: "I don't think his father was in a position to assist him against the narrative being controlled by the institution."

But he says Harry has "made it clear that he wants to repair those relationships".

Stott says the most uncomfortable thing he heard was the lack of support for Meghan when she sought help for mental health problems.

"I raised £900,000 for the Royal Foundation for their mental health campaign," he says. "So to feel that she had nowhere to go - that was very difficult to hear."

Here are some clips from Harry and Meghan's two-hour CBS primetime special interview with Oprah Winfrey. Oprah and Meghan spoke about the Royal Family deciding not to make Archie a prince. Meghan said that there were also conversations within the family - relayed to her by Harry - "about how dark his skin might be when he was born". Harry also spoke about his relationship with Prince Charles.

Image source, Getty Images

During the interview with Oprah, Meghan referenced a photograph of her and Harry during their time as senior royals to illustrate how different things were behind the scenes.

She said that the evening after she told Harry that she was feeling suicidal, they had to attend an official event at the Royal Albert Hall.

"That picture, if you zoom in, what I see is how tightly his knuckles are gripped around mine," she told Oprah, as she became emotional.

"We are smiling and doing our job but we're both just trying to hold on. "Every time those lights went down in that royal box, I was just weeping."

Princess Diana's name came up many times throughout the interview - with similarities drawn between their experiences of being in the Royal Family.

"I didn't even know who to turn to," said Meghan, of the time when she was struggling. "One of the people I reached out to who's continued to be a friend and confidante was one of my husband's mom's best friends.

"Because it's like who else could understand what it's actually like on the inside?"

Here are 12 things we learned from Harry & Meghan's Oprah interview.

Harry and Meghan's Oprah special is not the end of the revelations, says Caroline Feraday a journalist and broadcaster, formerly of the BBC.

She's been speaking to BBC Breakfast from Los Angeles and says the world will be watching to see what response there might be from the Royal Family.

"It's still late Sunday night here in Los Angeles, tomorrow they'll have the breakfast programmes that go out here where we are promised more revelations," she says.

"There's a lot more footage that wasn't shown as part of that interview that's still to come so this isn't the end of the revelations - it isn't just what was contained in that two hours."

She says it was more like an hour of interview and an hour of adverts.

"I've never seen so many commercials in a programme so definitely it was a money spinner but there's still more to come," she adds.

Omid Scobie, author of Finding Freedom: Harry and Meghan says the interview showed the couple were able to "distinguish between the institution of the monarchy and the Royal Family".

He says: "Certainly when it came to Harry and Meghan's happiness within the institution, their feelings of being unprotected not being looked after, these are things I've already tried to challenge the palace on myself."

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "There was a moment across the entire United States where jaws dropped when Meghan went into detail about how a Royal Family member questioned or expressed concern about how dark Archie's skin may be."

He says: "It gives us a much deeper insight into the struggles they faced not just the institution of the monarchy but the family themselves."

He adds: "We'd heard a lot of worry over the last few weeks that the couple might disrespect the Queen in this Oprah special, they may hurt her, in fact we discovered or heard more details about just how close they've been with her Majesty, even since the time that they stepped away from their royal roles."

He says: "I remember sources telling me when Harry and Meghan were living at at Frogmore Cottage, the Queen saw more of Archie more than any other Royal family member. I think that relationship has managed to survive through all of the difficulties the couple's faced."