Meghan Markle says it's 'liberating' to be able to speak for herself after leaving the royal family

• The Duchess of Sussex said she wasn't allowed to give an interview to Oprah as a working royal.
• In a clip from Markle's sit-down with Oprah, she said it was liberating to speak for herself.

The Duchess of Sussex has spoken about what it was like to be prohibited from making her "own choices" as a member of the royal family.

In a new clip from Meghan Markle's interview with Oprah, which will air on CBS on Sunday, she said she hadn't been allowed to accept an interview request from the talk show host three years ago.

Oprah recalled calling Markle in early 2018 before the royal wedding, asking her for an interview - to which the former actress politely declined.

"I wasn't even allowed to have that conversation with you, personally, right. There had to be people from the comm, sitting there," Markle said.

When asked by Oprah why she had decided to give the interview now, Markle said it was due to both "a lot of life experience that's happened" and her and Prince Harry's newfound "ability to make our own choices in a way that I couldn't have said yes to you then."

"That wasn't my choice to make. So, as an adult, who lived a really independent life to then go into this construct, that is different than I think what people imagine it to be. It's really liberating to be able to have the right and the privilege in some ways to be able to say yes," she said.

"To be able to just make a choice on your own, and to be able to speak for yourself," Markle added.

In another clip, released on Thursday, Oprah asked the duchess how she felt about the palace hearing "her truth."

"I don't know how they could expect that after all of this time we would still just be silent if there's an active role that the firm is playing in perpetuating falsehoods about us," Markle said. "And if that comes with risk of losing things, I mean, there's a lot that has been lost already."