so isolated that at one point she had suicidal thoughts. >> this is a day from stepping back if their senior roles in the royal family, harry talks about feeling trapped who at one point charles stopped taking harry's calls, this begs a response from the palace, questions they have to address. cnn anchor max foster live at windsor castle. max, what is the palace saying? >> reporter: nothing. i haven't heard anything from them so far. i think they are scrambling to come up with a response, if i'm honest. they didn't get a preview of this and there was revelation of revelation, after revelation. some of them very difficult to watch, john. >> i just didn't want to be alive maanymore and that was a very clear and real and frightening constant thought. >> reporter: driven to despair by the family she married into and the institution behind it. >> we had to go to this event. i remember him saying, i don't think you can go. i said, i can't be let alone. >> because you were afraid of what you might do to yourself? >> meghan, duchess of sussex opening up to oprah winfrey about being singled out. she believes forced out of the royal family for her race. concerns even raised by unnamed royals about the color of her child's skin. >> and also concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he is born. >> what? >> and who is having that conversation with you? >> what? so, those are conversations, hold up -- >> there were several conversations. >> there is a conversation with you -- >> with harry. >> and even more shocking allegation that she was told her child couldn't be a prince for unstated reasons, even afforded a security detail. >> the idea of our son fought being safe and also the idea of the first member of color in this family not being titled in the same way that other grandchildren would be. >> reporter: a bar annual of negative press, damaging meghan's health, she says the palace did nothing to help her. instead refusing to combat media rumors, including allegations she made her sister-in-law, the duchess of cambridge cry, when meghan says it was the other way around harry comparing his experience to his mother's. >> what i was seeing is history replaying itself. >> they said they blindsided the queen, another rule ar peddled by the palace. >> i hugged my grandmother and had two conversations with my father before he stopped taking my calls and then said, can you put this all in writing what your plan is? >> reporter: harry says he has a deep respect for his grandmother, the queen and has spoken to her more this last year than in many years. as for his father. >> i feel really let down because he's been through something similar. he knows what pain feels like and this is -- and archie is his grandson. >> so what was it discussing with harry that skin tone of his future babies, we still don't know. oprah just revealed that harry told her it wasn't the queen or prince philip. >> really interesting. thank you for all the reporting. obviously, when you get anything developing, bring it back to us. joining us for analysis, the world editor of best life and author of diana, the secrets of her style and cnn contributor entertainment tonight michelle turner. dianne, you have written so much about diana and studied her. i want to start with you. what echo of her experience do you hear with harry and meghan talking there? >> i think it was surprising how much the spectre of diana hung over this interview. there was a lot, it's eerily similar. i think it's interesting because harry's concern is history was going to repeat itself. this is almost -- i don't want to say play-for-play, but event-for-event. diana felt isolated and alone. diana did the same thing. she started thinking about suicide. diana said she did attempt suicide five times. so it's incredible, the similarities are so close. this must be distressing to meghan but absolutely horrifying to harry. >> michelle max brought up oprah is doing an interview this morning, she is elaborating more. one of the burning questions was, what member of the royal family, who would ask that question to harry? >> right. >> i just want to play oprah winfrey talking about that a little more this morning. listen. >> he did not share the identity with me, but he wanted to make sure if i knew or had an opportunity to share it, that it was not his grandmother nor his grandfather were a part of those conversations. >> i mean, so the list is getting narrower, michelle. you know, look, obviously, harry has a lot of problems with his father. you are left to wonder, could it have been his father. really, these are explosive issues that were revealed last night. >> absolutely. and in the interview, harry said it was a close family member, but he refused to go any further than that i gained from that, that it was something so personal, someone so close to him that it wounded him really, really deeply. so now to have the queen and prince philip cut out of the mix, it does make you wonder and to hear him speak further about his relationship with his father and his brother, it makes you wonder. he said he was very disappointed in his father. yes, they are speaking again, but there is a lot of healing to be done. when asked about his relationship with prince william, the relationship is, long pause, fake. that is telling. a lot of the things they didn't say were more telling than some of the things they did say. >> how about that? how do you think the relationship with his father had deteriorated to the point where prince charles wouldn't take his son's phone calls? >> well, it's absolutely stunning. a lot of people don't know, charles was actually closer to harry before all of this. now his relationship with william has become closer. but i think that the idea that charles was the integral part of the breakdown is quite shocking. you have this image of charles walking meghan down the aisle, he was quite fond of her. the queen was very fond of meghan, apparently still is. the idea that the breakdown was charles and the breakdown started there during the exit negotiations is quite, quite surpriseing. >> in the show, i mentioned this earlier. it's one thing if this were a story about broken people. every one of us is flawed in a wrong way. this is about broken people in what is described as a broken institution. people in an institution that wasn't there for meghan when she was specifically asking for help, potentially life saving help. they, it, they and it turned it back on her in this time of need. >> you know it's interesting because we have her, them often say that this is a family that put duty over family in a lot of instances because the monarchy. but to hear it detailed in that sense, it really is shocking and i often have been thinking about, could both sides actually be right? so, hey, i don't want to be in this bubble. let me take my family and do whatever i need to do to say well, this is who we are as an institution. this is our legacy. so we will do this here. but when you hear what they detailed in an interview, you do come away thinking, this is a very antiquated institution and that you have to also when you are being a monarchy, doesn't there have to be some empathy and humanization within this institution, the firm or how they would call it, that lends to when someone says, i need help, hearing that person and giving that help and not thinking that that is in anyway, shape or form diminishes the image of the monarchy. that is really hard to wrap your brain around. i know there are a lot of people in the uk this morning saying this is what we know and defending that. but i have to tell you, i think the collective last night were saying who? who does that? you know, who are these people that just dismiss that at all? >> dianne, i mean, look, as you well know, there is this whole romantic fantasy that little girls are fed from the beginning of time about becoming a princess and how glamorous and romantic it would be. then last night to hear the reality of -- i guess we knew you give up some personal freedoms, but i didn't know you immediately hand over your atm, your passport, your car keys, your identity and are you trapped in the castle. they tell you when you can go out. meghan markle talked about being out twice in the space of four months and the firm telling her, your saturated. your oversaturated in the media. you can't go out for lunch with your girlfriend. why is it that kate middleton seems to be able to navigate that and for meghan it was so crushing to the point of suicidal thoughts? >> well, there is a huge difference. i've said many times over that the british people have this sort of sense of iconic. it means a great deal to them and an american coming into that family has no idea of what the real sort of story s. because they haven't grown up with it. interestingly enough, meghan said last night, one day when she was feeling lonely at home in nottingham cot annual. she found herself watching the little mermaid and told oprah she felt inches to the little mermaid. she found her prince and lost her voice. but in the end, she got it back. i felt that was the only light moment of the absolutely shocking two hours. i think she really didn't know in a lot of ways. you can know but you don't know until are you in. which is what she said. she said she was naive going into it. she said she really didn't understand what the job was. so this must have been particularly crushing to someone, not a teenager that didn't have any life experience, but someone like meghan who has been out in the world, very vocal. an advocate for women's rights, all those things that she did. it's unimagine annual what she tho -- unimaginable what she felt and thought with no support except for her husband. >> we want to take moment for this note to our viewers. if you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, there is help out there, you can call the national suicide prevention lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. for our viewers around the world, the international suicide intervention and defenders world wide reach out. harry says the royal family cut him off financially. how does that work? we have that and more from the royal family drama. scription strength non-steroidal anti-inflammatory gel... available over the counter. voltaren is powerful arthritis pain relief in a gel. voltaren. the joy of movement. to be honest...a little dust? it never bothered me. until i found out what it actually was. dust mite droppings? ewww. dead skin cells? gross! so now, i grab my swiffer heavy duty sweeper and dusters. dusters extends to 6 feet to reach way up high... to grab, trap and lock away gross dust. nice! for dust on my floors, i switch to sweeper. the heavy duty cloths reach deep in grooves to grab, trap and lock dust bunnies... no matter where they hide. no more heebie jeebies. phhhhew. glad i stopped cleaning and started swiffering. the new myww+ gives you more of what you need to help you lose weight! more simplicity with the what's in your fridge? recipe feature. and more motivation with on-demand workout classes. the new myww+. join now, pay later! get your first 3 months free. find your rhythm. your happy place. the new myww+. join now, pay later! find your breaking point. then break it. every emergen-c gives you a potent blend of nutrients so you can emerge your best with emergen-c. kate was called waiting katie waiting to marry william. while that was hard and i do, i can't picture what that felt like. this is not the same and as a member of this family will comfortably say we all had to teal with things that are rude, rude and racist are not the same. equally, we had a press team that goes on the record to defend you, especially when they know something is not true. and that didn't happen for us. >> we are back now with dianne mcclain and michelle turner. that was interesting. rude and racist is not the same. i think that's an excellent point and it's baffling why the palace, they're so powerful, why didn't they step in and tell the press, cut it out? this isn't acceptable? the idea that she felt she couldn't trust the people there supposedly to protect her. >> i mean, that's a great question. why didn't they? and i think that is something that meghan has been asking over and over again in a question that led to ultimately harry saying i have to protect my family and take other steps. she's right. we did see those headlines about kate during the courtship of william over all of those years. there were some things that were said about her. but ultimately, the coverage of kate had been glowing in a lot of ways and the coverage of meghan, i remember one headline still that sticks out to me, because it was such a dagger in the heart saying that meghan was straight out of compton, you know, coming into the royal family straight out of compton, first of all, she's from the crenshaw district. i ask the question, why would they write that? crenshaw is closer to beverley hills, if you want to write a headline about that those are the things when she says there is a difference between being rude and racist. those can eat at the heart and eat away as you as she said they did. >> you asked the question, who does this? this is a prism of some institution or holier than now you know tradition and start to say who are these people asking these offensive questions? why can they get away with it and how can they not answer for it? dianne, the flipside, i accept this with criticism of harry and meghan, which is they are criticizing the press. they are criticizing i go es the notion of celebrity in a way, yet, here they are with oprah last night so how do you explain that? >> right. i think they owe us to control the narrative. everything that they do, they want their side of the story out. there is a stark difference between what they experienced when they were at the palace dealing with the royal protocol and now. i think it's very, very different. also, american media is preferential towards celebrity. they love the royals here. i can honestly tell you, people here find it so fascinating, whereas in britain i've heard many, many times by several people the media must build you up to tear you down. that is very clear in this up and down relationship that kate has and in the beginning, everyone was thrilled that meghan was supposed to be a breath of fresh air. it didn't take long for them to turn. during that interview, harry said this family is afraid of the tabloid media. he knows they need them in order to sort of stay relevant to get their message out. it was very interesting when he says there were generations of fear. does that mean the tabloid controls the royal family because they feared them? it certainly sounds that way. >> interesting. dianne, speaking of that and the relationship between the tabloids and the royal family, harry is scared, obviously, because they basically killed his mother. you know, it's hard to mince words about just how sad she was until the very last moments. he talked about how her mother -- how his mother would be seeing all this today. >> what do you think your mom would say about this stepping back, this decision to step back from the royal family? how would she feel about this moment? >> i think she would feel very angry is how this has pand out and very sad. but, ultimately, all she'd ever wanted is for us to be happy. >> i mean, this is history repeating itself. >> it is. it very much s. and i think that the trauma that harry suffered obviously went very, very deep when he told i-tv in 2019, every time he sees a flash bulb, it brings him back to this moment. he carried this with him. i feel the protectiveness he feels towards meghan. obviously, now we know a lot more about that in a lot of ways i feel harry could not rescue his mother when he was a 12-year-old boy. he wants to make sure he can rescue meghan from the thing that ultimately cost his mother his life. >> how they rescued each other. how it was interesting to me, both acknowledging how much they need each other there. can we speak to, what does meghan markle represent here? american by the way, american resident now by the way, what do you think she represents in this country? >> you know, i think that she is in a lot of ways america's princess. i think that miami here in the united states have collectively tried to have her back to gather around her, hold her up as a woman, as a black woman and as an american just to say, we have -- is representing this morning a woman who has found her voice. i mean, you know, we were celebrating international women's day. this is women's history month. i think we see an example that a lot of people are saying at-a-girl for finally being able to exhale when you feel like you have been holding your breath for so long. so i think that she, you know, will be met with a lot of adoration. of course, there will be the critics out there and no one is above criticism. but again i think there is a difference between criticizing and action and coming at it from a place of hate, racism and ma some m some my -- masemessageney. can you explain this to us, why would that baby not be given security? the royal family doesn't want a security issue of an emergency of some kind on their hands, it was interesting to hear harry talk about how much the purse strings are controlled by prince charles. they have no money. he has no connection, he doesn't really have money left over by his mom. but they can't rely on the royal money now and that even security. they were already having to pay for themselves. >> right. well, the idea that they were moving out of the uk and going literally to canada and there was that discussion about who was going to pay their security costs. but the bake idea is this goes back to several years ago, that charles says he wants to swing down -- so there are many people in the family, prince andrew's daughter, they've lost their protection. so there is the sense that they are whittling down who in effect gets protection and titles and the like, but the idea that this is charles' son, this is the son of diana, you would think there would be some kind of provision and sort of different kind of treatment, because she so close. i mean, he is seventh in line to the throne. the idea that these royal decision are made by the palace. the queens that title to bestow titles as she did when they got married. so there was a sense she was going to give a title to archie and there was a lot of reporting saying they didn't want that title because they didn't want to burden their son with the same kind of responsibility and fame that goes along with that. but there is a lost intricate protocol in terms of where people fall in the line of succession as getting a title. they've changed the rules officially in parliament to allow princess charlotte to get a title and also to the line of succession ahead of males, this is antiquated protocol and thought that goes into this. so i can understand why they were extremely upset. and when you put it in the context of a family, i think that in a lot of ways, the queen, herself, is sort of following protocol and duty where other people may have had more nefarious reasons for accusing them of certain things. >> diane, michelle, thank you both for being with us. still so many questions. i imagine we will be talking about this for some time. president biden $1.9 corona relief bill faces a big vote in the house tomorrow. what is the feeling in the democratic party about this, this morning? 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