Meghan Markle says she felt greater pressure than other royals: ‘Rude and racist are not the same’

Coverage differed from Kate Middleton’s ‘because of the race’

Meghan Markle told Oprah Winfrey she felt under greater pressure than other members of the royal family, saying the criticism of them on social media and in tabloid newspapers was ‘not the same’.

‘Rude and racist are not the same,’ the duchess said in a previously unaired clip from the couple’s interview comparing her experience with the press to that of Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge, and other royals.

She said: "Kate was called 'Waity Katie' waiting to marry William. While I imagine that was really hard - and I do, I can't picture what that felt like - this is not the same.

"And if a member of his family would comfortably say 'we've all had to deal with things that are rude', rude and racist are not the same.

"And equally you've also had a press team that goes on the record to defend you, especially when they know something's not true, and that didn't happen for us."

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Meghan said her treatment had been different “because of the race” and coverage had “a noise level that’s very different”.

“Unfortunately if members of his family say ‘this is what happened to all of us’, they can be compared,” she said, “this is not the same.”

Harry was asked why his father Prince Charles had not found the pressure from public criticism of media scrutiny intolerable. He said: “He’s had to make peace with it.”

Of Prince William’s experience, Harry said: "My brother can’t leave that system, but I have."

The comments were among several aired exclusively on breakfast show CBS This Morning, hours after Winfrey's main interview had been shown on primetime American television.

The talk show veteran said the couple wanted to do the interview "because when you have been lied about for a series of years ... [and] somebody is saying things about you that are not true ... how hurtful that is, imagine that for a period of months and years and you know that isn’t true.”