Suicidal thoughts, a racist relative and an heir-to-the-throne trapped by tradition — Prince Harry and his wife Meghan have lifted the lid on life inside Britain's royal family with an explosive interview that reverberated around the world.
The two-hour sit-down with Oprah Winfrey by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex was the most startling since Harry's late mother Princess Diana made her own bombshell revelations in 1995, and triggered similar questions about the ability of Queen Elizabeth II's family to weather the storm.
Harry described feeling "really let down" by his father Prince Charles, who had stopped taking his phone calls for a time. Both Charles — the queen's heir — and Harry's elder brother William were "trapped" by the conventions of the monarchy.
"They don't get to leave. And I have huge compassion for that," Harry said in the interview broadcast on CBS Sunday night, explaining the couple's dramatic exit from royal life just over a year ago which has now seen them stripped by the queen of their honorary titles and patronages.
Meghan, a former TV actress in the hit legal drama "Suits", described herself as "naively" unprepared for life in the pressure cooker of the royal family.
She said she was denied help for a mental health crisis, was targeted by lies in an incident involving her sister-in-law, and that there was official concern about the skin colour of her unborn son.
"I... just didn't want to be alive anymore. And that was a very clear and real and frightening constant thought," she told Winfrey, describing the impact of vitriol from hostile tabloids in Britain and social media.
Asked if she had had suicidal thoughts while pregnant with son Archie, Meghan replied: "Yes. This was very, very clear."
Meghan said she ultimately reached out to one of Princess Diana's best friends for support. "Who else could understand what it's actually like on the inside?"
Meghan, 39, also told of "concerns" about "how dark" Archie's skin would be, saying Harry revealed to her conversations over their baby's appearance, as well as the security he would be entitled to, ahead of his birth on May 6, 2019.
The couple both declined to name the royal involved in the conversations.
After the couple's surprise decision to move to North America, Meghan has been portrayed in some British newspapers as headstrong, calculating and spoiled, and the couple reckless and selfish for quitting royal life.
Criticism has mounted with the queen's husband Prince Philip, 99, currently in hospital, and Buckingham Palace last week hitting back with allegations that Meghan had bullied household staff.
The big-money interview on CBS was a settling of scores, royal author Robert Hardman told AFP in London.
"We were clearly expecting something pretty dramatic. I think it exceeded those expectations," he said.
"Clearly the couple possibly were hoping to clear the air and set the record straight, but in doing so they've obviously invited a whole new set of questions."
In Australia, The Daily Telegraph's TV editor Holly Byrnes declared that "on International Women's Day, let me be clear: I believe her (Meghan)."
"The pre-emptive strike last week, 'investigating' Meghan as a bully should read for what it is: the desperate spin of an institution that has learned nothing since Diana died and may well die because of it," she wrote in the tabloid newspaper.
Chris Ship, the royal editor of ITV, which is to air the interview in Britain on Monday night, said he was "momentarily paralysed" by the sheer volume of revelations.
"The couple had effectively loaded up a B-52 bomber, flew it over Buckingham Palace and then unloaded their arsenal right above it, bomb by heavily-loaded bomb," he said, highlighting the talk of racism and suicide.
Ship added that since the couple voiced such grave concerns about the family, "surely their severe criticisms of it extend to the queen herself?"
Harry, 36, said the pair, who have secured lucrative deals with Netflix and Spotify, had to find a way to make money as "my family literally cut me off financially."
"I'm sad that what's happened has happened, but... we did everything that we could to make it work," he said.
In one happier revelation, the couple disclosed the gender of their second baby, due in the summer. "It's a girl!" Harry and Meghan chimed in tandem.
But it was a rare light-hearted moment.
Markle flatly denied reports — feasted on by the gossip press — that she made Prince William's wife Kate cry before her wedding to Harry, saying the reality was the opposite.
"Everyone in the institution knew it wasn't true," Meghan told Winfrey, relating the incident involving the choice of dress for Kate's daughter Charlotte.
"The reverse happened," Meghan added, saying that Kate "was upset about something, but she owned it, and she apologised."
Meghan called the claims "the beginning of a real character assassination" and "a turning point" in her relations with the royal family.
"I came to understand that not only was I not being protected but that they were willing to lie to protect other members of the family."
The May 2018 wedding in front of Winfrey and other VIP guests, in fact, was a "spectacle for the world", Meghan revealed.
But the couple had actually got privately married three days earlier, by the Archbishop of Canterbury.
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