How the UK front pages reacted to Harry and Meghan's 'bombshell' interview

The front pages of Britain’s newspapers are dominated by the fallout from Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s interview with Oprah Winfrey.

The two-hour interview, originally broadcast on CBS in the US, was aired on ITV1 on Monday evening, and contained a number of revelations about the Royal Family.

Tuesday’s newspapers all focused on the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and what their claims could mean for the monarchy.

Read more: Poll shows Britons have little sympathy for Harry and Meghan

On Monday, Harry said in a clip not aired in the original broadcast that racism in the UK was a “large part” of why he and Meghan left for the US, and that the British press, “specifically the tabloids”, was “bigoted”.

Some of those newspapers hit back on Tuesday, with the Daily Mail asking of the couple in its front page headline: “What have they done?”

The paper’s royal editor Rebecca English said the “bombshell” interview left Buckingham Palace “paralysed with ‘horror and dismay”.

She wrote: “The Queen, Prince Charles and Prince William were all locked in crisis talks over how to react to a string of incendiary accusations unleashed by Harry and wife Meghan”.

In the interview, Meghan revealed there were times when she “didn’t want to be alive any more” because of the pressures of life within the Royal Family.

She said at one point an unnamed royal asked Harry “how dark” their son Archie’s skin might be.

On Monday, Winfrey told CBS This Morning that Harry told her neither the Queen nor Prince Philip made the remark.

Harry said he felt “let down” by his father the Prince of Wales, saying Charles stopped taking his calls after the couple’s decision to step back from royal duties. Harry also said he and his brother William “were on different paths”.

The couple also revealed that they are expecting a baby girl.

Although the Daily Telegraph led with US president Joe Biden saying Meghan had shown courage in speaking out, its columnist Allison Pearson said the interview was a “devastating insult” to the Queen.

She wrote: “However loudly Harry and Meghan may have proclaimed their affection for the monarch there is no question that their interview was a devastating act of lèse-majesté.

“The couple unleashed demons which could destabilise her beloved Commonwealth and threaten the future of the monarchy itself.”

The front page in the Daily Express read: “So sad it has come to this”. Its columnist Stephen Pollard criticised the Sussexes for electing to air their grievances on “prime time TV”.

Read more: Meghan says she's had worse press treatment than Kate

He wrote: “Meghan and Harry took to the airwaves for a two-hour long interview in which they spoke about themselves, their feelings and their wishes to the exclusion of all else.”

Referring to the abdication of Edward VIII in 1936, the Daily Mirror said it was the “worst royal crisis in 85 years”.

A leading article in The Times said: “The implication that the monarchy is racist could hardly be more damaging to an institution that relies for its legitimacy on its claim to represent the whole of modern Britain.

“The problem for the royal family is that there is little they could say by way of explanation or mitigation that would not risk making the situation worse.”

Metro splashed with a picture of Harry, a pregnant Meghan and Archie with the headline, “Just the four of us now”.