The tabloids have covered every angle, from whether the two biggest women in American TV are interviewing the Duchess of Sussex to mediating family matters for her.
Just months after Meghan’s 2018 wedding to Prince Harry, Woman’s Day reported that Oprah was swooping in to make peace between Meghan and her father, Thomas Markle. Meghan and her father infamously had a falling out days before her wedding after it was revealed that Thomas worked with paparazzi to stage a photo.
The relationship between father and daughter only became icier after months of public attacks from Thomas towards both Meghan and the royal family. Oprah, according to a so-called “insider,” decided she needed to step in.
“Oprah has got involved in helping Meghan work things out,” the supposed insider told the publication. “And her magic seems to be working because Thomas has calmed down and he’s taking calls from Meghan for the first time in weeks.”
Soon, Oprah planned to invite both parties to her Santa Barbara mansion for a “peace summit.” None of this is true.
First of all, Thomas admitted a month before in an interview with Daily Mail that all the numbers he’d had to contact his daughter had been “disconnected” and he “had no way of contacting her.” Obviously he hasn’t been dodging – or taking – Meghan’s probably nonexistent calls for “weeks.”
Gossip Cop also reached out to Oprah’s spokesperson, who informed us there was “no truth” to this story. Oprah was not playing peacekeeper between father and daughter.
Almost two years later, in February of this year, that same outlet struck out again with yet another phony story. This time, Oprah was furious over the news Ellen DeGeneres would be interviewing Meghan Markle and Prince Harry.
According to the disreputable magazine, DeGeneres had recently “confirmed rumors” that she’d be conducting the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s first post “Megxit” interview. A supposed insider confided in the outlet that former daytime talk show host Oprah was “seeing red” over the missed opportunity.
“Oprah thought she was a shoo-in to get Harry and Meghan’s first sit-down,” the alleged source tattled. “She’s working with Harry on a production about his mental health stuff and went to great lengths to befriend Meghan’s mom. But if Ellen really has got this interview, it’s all for nothing.”
Gossip Cop came across a huge problem with this story while debunking it. Prince Harry and Meghan never appeared on DeGeneres’ talk show. Rumors about the two ex-royals appearing on the Ellen DeGeneres Show got a lot of buzz but were ultimately proven to be wrong.
The much more reliable People quoted a palace insider who told them the story was “categorically untrue.” The reputable outlet also stated Meghan and Prince Harry had no intention of doing a sit-down interview at that time, with DeGeneres or Winfrey or anyone else.
DeGeneres also never confirmed the rumors that she’d be interviewing the Duke and Duchess. Rather she was asked if she would be excited to interview them.
DeGeneres, who was on the phone at the time, answered a bit distractedly, “Sure, I’m excited.” That’s not confirming the rumors, it’s a rhetorical answer to a rhetorical question.
Star soon followed up with an article of its own. Prince Harry, who held a grudge against his family, was encouraging Meghan Markle to expose royal family secrets on the Ellen DeGeneres Show.
“Harry wants Meghan to talk about everything – the backstabbing, the arguments, the favoritism and the truth about their feud with Prince William and Kate Middleton,” snitched the alleged insider.
Gossip Cop didn’t have a good feeling about this story, given the tabloid’s horrible track record, so we reached out to our source close to DeGeneres, who informed us the talk show host was not planning on interviewing Meghan.
“None of it is true other than they are very good friends,” our insider told us. It just doesn’t make sense for a couple who left the royal family due to the constant media attention to then purposefully seek out more media attention. We’re glad we paid attention to our hunch since this story was so laughably false.