Royals must respond, experts say

The Queen is grappling with a crisis that is threatening the monarchy, leaving Buckingham Palace with little choice but to respond to Prince Harry and Meghan’s bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey, royal experts say.

The Palace has remained silent since the blockbuster tell-all aired on Sunday, and royal expert Victoria Murphy understands the family has been locked in meetings ever since.

“She (the Queen) has weathered a lot of ups and downs but I do think this is a really crucial point for the monarchy,” Murphy told 9News special The Crown In Crisis.

“It’s absolutely a crisis.

“I think it’s a very brave person who claims to know what the Queen is thinking, but clearly the Royal Family is absolutely reeling from this.”

Former Buckingham Palace staffer Dickie Arbiter said the family could no longer ignore the issue because too many accusations had been levelled.

“I don’t think they will ignore it. They can’t ignore it. There were too many accusations levelled at the Palace,” Arbiter told The Crown In Crisis.

“There’s the accusation of racism. That’s an interesting one, because Meghan referred to it as conversations, plural, during her pregnancy. 

“Harry, who comes into the interview an hour after it started, refers to a conversation before they were married. So what was it? While she was pregnant or before they were married?”

Another key point to emerge from Sunday’s interview was Meghan’s mental health struggles and what she described as a lack of support from the Palace. 

“I went to the institution and I said that I needed to go somewhere to get help. I said that I’ve never felt this way before and I need to go somewhere,” she said. 

“And I was told that I couldn’t, that it wouldn’t be good for the institution.”

Arbiter said he found it hard to believe that “nobody would raise a finger or even a hand to help her” during that dark time.

“To say that she wasn’t looked after, I do find it a bit rich and that is something that the Palace will have to look into,” he said. 

“Did she actually talk to somebody in the palace and, if so, who did she talk to?”