Privacy-loving Meghan and Harry under fire for milking media amid Oprah deal

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have made it crystal clear they value their privacy, but Prince Harry and Meghan have left fans scratching their heads after news broke earlier today that they have agreed to sit down for a 90-minute tell-all interview with American TV host Oprah Winfrey.

Harry and Meghan, who revealed on Valentine’s Day on Sunday that they are expecting their second child, announced their plans to step back from the royal family on January 8 last year. Since then, the couple has worked hard to hold the media accountable for their actions, even suing a British publisher that published a private letter Meghan sent to her estranged father Thomas Markle shortly after her 2018 royal wedding to Prince Harry. As a result, the pair’s latest decision to sit down with Oprah, not to forget their very public recent pregnancy announcement, has left fans baffled.

According to news.com.au, the “intimate conversation” will be broadcast by the US television network CBS early next month.

“Winfrey will speak with Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, in a wide-ranging interview, covering everything from stepping into life as a royal, marriage, motherhood, philanthropic work, to how she is handling life under intense public pressure,” CBS revealed on Monday. “Later, the two [will be] joined by Prince Harry as they speak about their move to the United States and their future hopes and dreams for their expanding family.”

In response to the news of the tell-all interview, Twitter user @DavidHu53487787 jokingly wrote, “Yep, that’s keeping your family life private and out of the media.” And a confused @JaeRoth6 questioned, “I thought they left because they wanted to be private citizens?” While a disappointed @Sam_Northampton wrote, “Hypocrisy. This is becoming rather like some circus.”

The pair’s decision comes after English broadcaster Piers Morgan, who has been a long-standing critic of the couple, slammed Harry and Meghan for their “carefully choreographed” pregnancy announcement.

The Duke and Duchess broke the news on Sunday by releasing a statement alongside a beautiful black-and-white photo. In the shot, Harry, 36, can be seen cradling Meghan, 39, while she holds her baby bump. The photo was taken by their good friend, photographer Misan Harriman. To make the pregnancy announcement even more special, royal expert and reporter Omid Scobie pointed out on Twitter, that on Valentine’s Day 37 years ago, Harry’s parents Prince Charles and Princess Diana announced they were expecting him.

 

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A post shared by Misan Harriman (@misanharriman)

However, Morgan was less than impressed by the announcement, writing in dailymail.co.uk on Tuesday, “I can’t have been the only one who was somewhat surprised by the manner in which we learned of this delightful development.

“The statement from their spokesman, saying the couple are ‘overjoyed to be expecting their second child’, was perfectly standard. However, accompanying it was a photograph of Meghan lying in Harry’s lap under a tree in the Californian sunshine, with her Hobbit-like bare-footed husband grinning broadly as he cradled her bump. Like everything they do, this picture had been very carefully choreographed. They hired an old friend to capture the ‘spontaneous’ intimate moment – Misan Harriman, a Nigerian-born British photographer who a few months ago became British Vogue‘s first black male cover photographer in the magazine’s 104-year history. The date of the photo’s release was very deliberate too: Princess Diana and Prince Charles had also chosen Valentine’s Day to reveal they were having Harry, 37 years ago in 1984.

“But it was the fact this photo was given to everyone in the media, via the Press Association, that raised my eyebrows in disbelief,” Morgan added. “Ten months ago, Meghan and Harry declared they would now have a ‘zero engagement’ policy with four British newspapers in one of their many furious tirades against the press whenever they are criticised for doing stuff like preaching about the environment as they use Elton John’s private jet like a taxi service.”