Prince Harry and Meghan Markle 's highly anticipated interview with Oprah aired Sunday.- They said they stayed at
Tyler Perry 's home in Los Angeles after stepping back from royal duties. - They also said Perry provided security after their royal support was removed.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle said during a wide-ranging interview with Oprah Winfrey that aired Sunday night that Tyler Perry provided them a home and a security detail when they moved to Los Angeles after their royal support was removed.
The couple said that they moved to Los Angeles with their son, Archie, because their location in Canada, where they had initially settled after stepping back from royal duties in early 2020, became public, and the palace told them they would stop receiving security.
"The biggest concern was while we were in Canada, in someone else's house, I then got told, short notice, that security was going to be removed," Harry said. "At this point, everyone knew, thanks to the Daily Mail, our exact location. So suddenly it dawned on me: 'Hang on. The borders could be closed. We're going to have our security removed. Who knows how long lockdown is going to be. The world knows where we are. It's not safe, it's not secure. We probably need to get out of here.'"
"We didn't have a plan," Markle added. "We needed a house, and he offered his security as well, so it gave us breathing room to try to figure out what we were going to do," she said of Perry.
Harry said that the couple's royal security detail was withdrawn because of their "change in status," despite receiving confirmation that their risk had not changed.
The couple stayed at Perry's home for three months, then decided to stay in California and purchased their own home.
Perry, who has a net worth of about $1 billion, is best known for his long-running and hugely successful Madea film series. He made headlines in 2019 when he unveiled his 300-acre film studio in Atlanta.
Markle said in the interview that when she was pregnant, she and Harry were told that their child would not receive a royal title and therefore would not be provided a security detail. She also said that some members of the royal family had voiced "concerns" about how dark Archie's skin would be "and what that would mean or look like" if their baby had dark skin.
"In those months when I was pregnant, all around this same time we have in tandem the conversation of 'he won't be given security, he's not going to be given a title,' and also concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he's born," she said.
Harry and Markle didn't name the royals who had expressed the concerns. On "CBS This Morning" on Monday, Winfrey clarified that it wasn't Harry's grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, or his grandfather, Prince Philip.
"That conversation I am never going to share, but at the time it was awkward," Harry said in the interview. "I was in shock."