Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's 22-month-old son Archie Harrison—who will become a big brother when Meghan gives birth to the pair's next child later this year—made a surprise appearance during the couple's highly-anticipated interview with their friend Oprah Winfrey.
While Archie did not appear in the interview portion of the special, a clip of the family at the beach was played during the couple's conversation with Oprah as they discussed their new life as a family of three. In the black-and-white clip, Archie runs from his mom to his dad, while the family's dog hangs out in the background.
Harry and Meghan shared some sweet details about their son in the interview, including his favorite word and how he loves to tell people on the road to "drive safe."
While Archie is certainly an adorable addition to the special, much of what Meghan and Harry discussed was anything but pleasant. Meghan and Harry's interview with Oprah details the events that led to the couple stepping back from their duties as senior members of the royal family more than one year ago, as well as their reason behind the decision made just last month not to return as working members of the family. Critically, the pair shared that a major factor was the royal family being unable to protect Meghan and Archie from the world, despite making promises to do so.
The duo, who married in a royal wedding ceremony in 2018, have long been outspoken about the bullying that Meghan—an actress who starred on USA Network's Suits prior to marrying into the royal family—received from the media upon striking up a romance with Harry in 2016.
In 2019, the couple, who now live in California, announced they were suing The Mail on Sunday and its parent company Associated Newspapers, over "intrusive and unlawful publication of a private letter written by the Duchess of Sussex, which is part of a campaign by this media group to publish false and deliberately derogatory stories about her."
Last month, a U.K. High Court judge granted Meghan a "summary judgment" in her claim for misuse of private information against the company, writing that she "had a reasonable expectation that the contents of the Letter would remain private. The Mail Articles interfered with that reasonable expectation."
"After two long years of pursuing litigation, I am grateful to the courts for holding Associated Newspapers and The Mail on Sunday to account for their illegal and dehumanizing practices," Meghan said in a statement. "These tactics (and those of their sister publications MailOnline and The Daily Mail) are not new; in fact, they've been going on for far too long without consequence. For these outlets, it's a game. For me and so many others, it's real life, real relationships, and very real sadness. The damage they have done and continue to do runs deep."
In December of last year, the couple also settled a claim against Splash News and Picture Agency U.K. after they published "invasive" photos of Archie taken in a Canadian park.
A legal spokesperson for the couple said at the time, "This settlement is a clear signal that unlawful, invasive, and intrusive paparazzi behavior will not be tolerated, and that the couple takes these matters seriously—just as any family would."
What was less clear, up until this interview with Oprah, was how much Meghan and Harry saw the rest of the royal family as complicit in the couple's poor treatment from the press. After The Times published a story in March claiming that Meghan had bullied staffers, Meghan and Harry's lawyers said The Times was "being used by Buckingham Palace to peddle a wholly false narrative" before they gave their tell-all interview.