John Oliver has offered his thoughts on Oprah’s interview with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry, saying he was not surprised by Meghan’s description of her experience with the royal family.
The Last Week Tonight host appeared in an interview with Jimmy Fallon, after his 2018 advice for Meghan’s marriage went viral in the wake of the Oprah interview.
At the time, Oliver told The Late Show's Stephen Colbert: “I don't think you need to have just seen the pilot episode of The Crown to get a basic sense that [Meghan] might be marrying into a family that could cause her some emotional complications.”
He said of the royal family in general: “They're an emotionally stunted group of fundamentally flawed people doing a very silly pseudo job.”
Speaking to Fallon, Oliver said the Oprah interview was “amazing” but that few of the revelations surprised him.
“I didn't find any of it surprising,” he said. “That is kind of what I felt like, sadly, her experience was going to be going in.”
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The British-born TV host explained that, having grown up observing the royal family from a distance, he believed them to be “flawed people… that’s literally the kindest way I could possibly put it”.
He claimed that the only thing in the interview that did throw him was that “Harry wants to make it clear it wasn’t Prince Philip being racist [about Harry and Meghan’s son, Archie]. Which made me think, really? OK, that is actually surprising.”
He then joked that Prince Andrew, who has been placed under scrutiny over his personal relationship with the late billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, would likely be pleased with the global debate sparked by the interview.
“The one person who I think has been really happy about all this has been Prince Andrew,” Oliver said.
“I'm guessing that he has been nudging the royal family: ‘Can you believe what Meghan did, huh? Can you believe it? Dragging this family's name into disrepute, shaming us.... she has ruined our reputation, she has, right guys?’”
You can watch the entire interview with Oliver and Fallon here.
