Oprah Winfrey doesn’t do shouting matches. She doesn’t need to. One dry, perfectly timed aside—delivered in that trademark calm—can land harder than a full statement. And lately, a couple of her comments have set off a fresh round of whispers in royal-watchers’ corners: is she still as close to Meghan Markle and Prince Harry as she once seemed?
The woman who helped the Sussexes detonate their royal life on global television now sounds, at best, like someone speaking about former neighbors.
It’s easy to forget just how seismic that 2021 sit‑down was. Oprah Winfrey, on her own turf, giving Prince Harry and Meghan Markle an uninterrupted, primetime runway to unload everything they’d been holding back about the British monarchy—race, mental health, “concerns” about their unborn child’s skin color. Around 61 million people watched worldwide. For a brief moment, it looked like a world‑historical alliance: the most powerful woman in American media standing shoulder‑to‑shoulder with the couple who had just walked away from the Firm.
Fast forward a few years, and that alliance feels oddly distant. Not broken in some explosive, tabloid‑friendly way. Just… cooler. Thinner. Less lived‑in.
The most telling clue didn’t come from a palace leak or an anonymous “source close to.” It came from Oprah Winfrey herself, chatting with Kelly Ripa on the Let’s Talk Off Camera podcast about something as harmless as gifting baby chicks.
Oprah Winfrey joked that she had “run them straight over to Sussexes,” then leaned hard on the “out” and hit the “‑exes” with unmistakable emphasis. According to The List, she repeated it twice, almost as if she wanted to make sure the wording landed. On paper, it’s a throwaway line. In the clip, it has an edge. Not rage, not bitterness—more like a pointed distance. A way of signaling that whatever intimacy once existed is not quite there anymore.
A look at Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s interview with Oprah. I AM READY🍿!!! pic.twitter.com/TzMtGQPxiY
— ⚜️TV Fanatic⚜️ (@TvKhaleesi) March 1, 2021
In Hollywood, where every syllable is media‑trained, those tiny tonal choices matter. This one did not sound like warm, inside‑joke territory.
The shift isn’t just in how Oprah Winfrey talks. It’s in where she doesn’t show up.
When Meghan Markle’s birthday came around, the celebration was muted. A small gathering, a controlled Instagram post, no sprawling A‑list crowd. Missing from the frame—literally and figuratively—was Oprah Winfrey. For a friendship that once seemed central to the Sussexes’ post‑royal life, her absence was noticeable.
Then came As Ever, Meghan Markle’s highly trailed lifestyle brand. This was supposed to be a new era: carefully curated products, wellness‑adjacent messaging, the inevitable comparison to Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop. In a world where celebrity friends fall over themselves to post launch congratulations, something strange happened.
Nothing.
No public shout‑outs from Tyler Perry, who famously housed the couple when they first left the U.K. No Instagram love from Amal and George Clooney, once regular fixtures in the Sussex orbit. And, perhaps most glaringly, no visible support from Oprah Winfrey—the same woman who had once offered them the biggest platform in television.
Here’s my analysis of why MEGHAN MARKLE LIES with such ease and how the Oprah interview exposed it.
There are lies that come from panic. There are lies that come from confusion. Then there are lies that come from entitlement. The kind that slip out smoothly, confidently, without… pic.twitter.com/aTT8yHr09d
— Queen Esther (@XOQueenEsther) January 16, 2026
According to The List, a PR expert suggested that top‑tier Hollywood figures simply don’t want to be dragged into the increasingly messy drama that clings to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. It’s not that everyone suddenly hates them. It’s that public association comes with baggage, headlines, and comment‑section warfare that many stars just don’t need.
Radar Online quoted Hollywood insider Rob Shuter on Substack trying to thread the needle. “There’s no feud. But the dynamics have shifted,” he wrote. “Meghan is focused on her family and her work. And some people have moved on.” Translation: nobody’s flipping tables, but phone calls are going unanswered, and the group chats are quieter.
For Meghan Markle, that silence around As Ever was loud. A woman who once drew global sympathy now watches as even her supposed inner circle declines to post a simple “So proud of you.”
The most revealing moment yet might have slipped past casual viewers. On Making Space with Hoda Kotb, Oprah Winfrey was asked about friendship and community—territory she usually navigates with practiced warmth.
Meghan Markle on Oprah breaching ethical boundaries and lying on Thomas Markle Sr pic.twitter.com/Eu4cASlhwE
— MeghansMole©️ (@MeghansMole) December 14, 2025
She listed a small, tight circle: Maria Shriver, Gayle King, her long‑time trainer Bob Greene. People who have been with her for decades, not just viral cycles. Noticeably absent were Meghan Markle and Prince Harry. No anecdote, no affectionate aside, not even a neutral “we stay in touch.”
In isolation, that omission could mean nothing. Oprah Winfrey is allowed to have friends the public doesn’t see. But layer it onto the chick joke, the missing birthday cameo, the As Ever silence, and a pattern emerges. Not a screaming breakup, but a quiet recalibration from “allies in a global reckoning” to “cordial acquaintances at best.”
Hollywood friendships rarely explode cleanly the way fans might like. More often they thin out. The invitations slow. The public praise dries up. As Shuter put it, “There is no feud… some people have just moved on.” It increasingly looks like Oprah Winfrey is in that camp—too seasoned, and frankly too savvy, to stay in the center of a storm that no longer benefits her.
What this reveals is less about personal betrayal and more about power. When Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were newly exiled, aligning with them made Oprah Winfrey look fearless and current, a truth‑teller taking on an ancient institution. Years later, as public opinion on the Sussexes has curdled in places and their every move is framed as “drama,” that alignment is a lot more complicated.
Oprah’s Favorite Things 2024 list is here, and one of the picks was a gift from her neighbor Meghan Markle! 🎁 pic.twitter.com/vqm81I2yrx
— ExtraTV (@extratv) November 4, 2024
Oprah Winfrey has built an empire on control—of narrative, of image, of who gets her stamp of approval. The soft distancing from Meghan Markle doesn’t scream scandal. It whispers something more pragmatic: in an industry that never stops calculating risk, even a queen of empathy knows when to quietly step back.
