Meghan Markle has been all over the headlines again this week, but for once it’s of her own accord. The Duchess of Sussex released her first solo podcast with Spotify last week, Archetypes, and to promote it she agreed to a sit-down interview in her own home for a cover story in The Cut.
The sprawling conversation covered everything from an imminent Instagram return (please!) to the unplanned way she and Prince Harry ended up in Moniceto, California (Tyler Perry), as well as her estranged relationship with her father, Thomas Markle. During this part, the royals and their tense family dynamic, too, was mentioned.
But Markle says that one sentence that quickly went viral was actually taken out of context. When Markle was speaking about losing her father, she said: “Harry said to me, ‘I lost my dad in this process.’ It doesn’t have to be the same for them as it was for me, but that’s his decision.”
The way it reads is that Harry was saying he had lost his relationship with his father, Prince Charles. But according to a spokeswoman for Markle, who spoke to E! News, Markle (and Harry) was referring to her rapport with Thomas Markle, and then added she didn’t want the same outcome for her husband and his dad.
Apparently, we weren’t the only ones confused: According to BBC, a source close to Prince Charles told the United Kingdom’s PA news agency he would be disappointed if Harry felt their relationship was gone, adding, “The Prince of Wales loves both his sons.”
Despite them now apparently being on better terms, when Harry sat down with Oprah in April, he mentioned his dad had cut communication with him. “Because I took matters into my own hands. It was like I need to do this for my family. This is not a surprise to anybody; it’s really sad that it’s got to this point, but I’ve got to do something for my own mental health, for my wife’s, because I could see where this is headed,” he said when questioned about why.
Since then, both he and Markle, accompanied by their two young children, have spent time in the UK with the royals (though it pays to mention, no one-on-one time with Prince William nor Kate Middleton).