Pressure grows for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's Oprah interview to be postponed

2 March 2021, 09:35 | Updated: 2 March 2021, 09:47

The interview is due to be aired on Sunday evening in the US
The interview is due to be aired on Sunday evening in the US. Picture: PA

By Asher McShane

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are coming under growing pressure to ask for the airing of their interview with Oprah Winfrey to be postponed as Prince Philip undergoes treatment in hospital.

Royal commentators have suggested it is inappropriate for the interview to go out while Harry's grandfather the Duke of Edinburgh is treated in hospital.

Prince Philip has been moved to a specialist cardiac hospital in London. He was taken to St Barts yesterday for further treatment for an infection and for tests to do with a pre existing heart condition.

READ MORE: Harry tells Oprah he feared 'history repeating itself' with Meghan in tell-all interview

Daily Mail columnist Jan Moir told LBC News today: “Could they even delay it if they wanted to?

“Harry and Meghan, they’ve now done their interview, they’ve sung like canaries in their gilded cage, it’s out of their hands now.

“We are talking about a two hour long show… around which millions and millions of dollars of advertising may have already been sold.

“Momentum is building, we’re on the runaway train. I’m not sure they could stop it even if they wanted to.”

Royal biographer Robert Jobson told MailOnline: 'With the Duke of Edinburgh clearly very unwell, the fact that the couple plan to go ahead with airing their self-indulgent, no holds barred interview with chat show queen Oprah Winfrey makes them appear heartless, thoughtless and supremely selfish.

Penny Junor, who wrote Prince Harry, Brother, Soldier, Son, has questioned whether the interview should go ahead.

“It’s bad timing when they’re going to be saying ‘poor us’," she told the Sun.

A senior royal source asked the paper: “Why are they doing it?”

It comes amid reports ITV had secured the rights to air the interview in a £1m deal. A comment from ITV on the decision to air the interview with Prince Philip in hospital was not immediately available.