Meghan Markle says Queen Elizabeth was ‘always wonderful’: ‘I just really loved being in her company’

Meghan Markle says Queen Elizabeth was ‘always wonderful’: ‘I just really loved being in her company’

(CBS / Harpo Productions)

Meghan Markle had kind words for Queen Elizabeth during her and Prince Harry’s televised interview with Oprah Winfrey.

“The Queen has always been wonderful to me,” she told Oprah during the two-hour special. “I just really loved being in her company ... she’s always been warm and inviting and really welcoming.”

The Duchess also offered a sweet anecdote about the 2018 outing she and the Queen went on together, where the Queen offered to share her blanket to keep Meghan warm.

Speaking of her first time meeting the Queen when she and Harry were dating, the Duchess also had positive words around the experience, despite not knowing how to curtsy.

“I thought genuinely that [curtsying] was what happens outside,” she told Winfrey, “I thought that was part of the fanfare. I didn’t think that was what happened inside. I said, ‘But it’s your grandmother.’ And he said, “’It’s the queen.’ That was the first moment that the penny dropped.”

Watch: Meghan says it’s liberating being able to speak for herself in new Oprah interview clip

Read more:Follow live updates on Oprah’s interview with Meghan and Harry

However, Meghan’s comments on her time with the royal family were not all warm, with the Duchess revealing that she felt trapped in her new role after marrying Harry and at one point did not have access to her own keys or passport.

The interview, aired on CBS on Sunday (7 March), gives viewers a first look inside the lives of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex since stepping down from their roles as senior members of the royal family. A friend of the couple says that the special draws a line under a chapter of their lives and they want to “move on”.

Prince William is reportedly “livid” at the prospect of his brother and sister-in-law’s tell-all interview with reports saying it could be the “final nail” in the brothers’ relationship. Ahead of its broadcast tonight in the US, Harry has spoken with the Queen and been in regular contact with Prince Charles.

Earlier on Sunday, the Queen spoke of “selfless dedication to duty” in her Commonwealth message. Senior royals including the Prince of Wales and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge appeared together on the BBC One show to mark Commonwealth Day.

Watch: Prince Harry opens up about Princess Diana’s death in exclusive interview with Oprah