By KATIE KINDELAN, ABC News
(NEW YORK) — Oprah Winfrey has scored another major interview — a sit-down with Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
The interview will air in a 90-minute primetime special on CBS on March 7, Viacom, the parent company of CBS, announced Monday.
The couple’s interview with Winfrey will be the first they have done since leaving the U.K. last year after stepping down as senior members of Britain’s royal family.
“Winfrey will speak with Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex, in a wide-ranging interview, covering everything from stepping into life as a Royal, marriage, motherhood, philanthropic work to how she is handling life under intense public pressure,” Viacom said in a statement announcing the special. “Later, the two are joined by Prince Harry as they speak about their move to the United States and their future hopes and dreams for their expanding family.”
The interview was announced one day after Harry and Meghan revealed they are expecting their second child. Their son, Archie, will turn 2 in May.
The sit-down with Winfrey also comes just days after Meghan scored a major victory in her legal battle with Associated Newspapers Ltd., the publishers of the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday. The judge in the case ruled in Meghan’s favor that the Mail on Sunday invaded her privacy by publishing large parts of a personal letter she sent to her now-estranged father, Thomas Markle, before her 2018 wedding to Harry.
The fact that Meghan and Harry chose Winfrey for their first big interview in the U.S. is not a surprise.
Winfrey was a guest at the couple’s wedding, and Harry and Meghan now live near her in the Santa Barbara area of California.
Winfrey, who spent time with Meghan’s mom prior to the wedding, once said of the star-studded wedding, “It was more than a wedding, I thought. It was a cultural moment. And you could not be there or watching on television … and not feel that there was a shift that just happened in the middle of it. I think it’s bigger than them, and I think it bodes well for hope for all of us.”
Winfrey has also been working with Prince Harry for the past two years on a documentary series for Apple focused on mental health.
When Harry and Meghan’s son, Archie, was born in 2019, Winfrey gifted the boy with a library of books, all marked with stickers that read, “Archie’s Book Club.”
One of the books that Winfrey gifted Archie was seen in a video of Meghan reading to Archie for his first birthday last May.
Winfrey also defended Harry and Meghan over their decision to step down as senior royals and spend time outside the U.K.
When asked whether Harry’s decision to leave his royal life behind was inspiring, Winfrey replied, “I won’t even say inspiring. I’m saying he did what he needed to do for his family. That’s all I will say about that, and I don’t think anybody else has any right to say anything.”
“When a person has sat and thought about what is the best decision I’m going to make for my family and then he makes that decision, none of us have any right to say anything about that,” Winfrey told self-described “street journalist” Adam Glyn in New York City last January. “That’s his decision for his family.”
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