Royal family fretted about how dark my son might be, Meghan Markle tells Oprah

Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, says members of the UK royal family were “worried” over how dark her son’s skin might be before his birth.

Markle and Prince Harry welcomed Archie, their first child together, on May 6, 2019.

But in a recent interview with Oprah Winfrey, the 39-year-old claimed the royal family “fretted” over the colour of her son.

Markle, whose mother is African American and father is white, also spoke of how Harry told her conversations the royal family had with him over not naming Archie a prince and not providing their son with the security he is entitled to on the basis of his skin.

“In those months when I was pregnant… 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’s born,” she said.

“That was relayed to me from Harry, those were conversations the family had with him.”

The pair, however, did not mention who raised the concerns over the child’s skin colour.

Markle also revealed that she contemplated suicide amid the challenges she encountered when she joined the royal family.

Harry and Markle had faced intense backlash since they stepped down from royal duties last year, with the pair accusing the British media of being “toxic” in their coverage.

Speaking in the interview that aired on CBS on Sunday evening, Markle also narrated how the development left her unsettled emotionally to the extent she considered taking her own life.

“I was ashamed I had to admit it to Harry. I just didn’t want to be alive anymore. And that was a very clear and real and frightening constant thought,” she added.

On his part, Harry admitted that there was a deep division within his family. He also noted that he felt “really let down” by how Prince Charles, his father, had handled the situation.

The 36-year-old had earlier likened his “unbelievably tough” split from the royal family to the experience of Diana, his late mother.

Diana separated from Prince Charles and was thereafter reportedly shunned by the royal family after their controversial break-up in 1996.

She would later die in 1997 after a car crash in Paris, France — a development Harry had consistently blamed on British media coverage.