Meghan Markle Says She’s ‘Ready to Talk’ in New Oprah Interview Clip

Another clip from the upcoming tell-all interview with Meghan Markle, Prince Harry, and Oprah Winfrey is here. It’s not the most shocking exchange in the world, but it provides some crucial context for why this is happening right now. In short: Markle wasn’t allowed to talk openly to the public when she and Prince Harry were senior working members of the royal family.

“So, I just want to say that I called you either February or March 2018, before the wedding,” Winfrey recalls in the clip as Markle nods and smiles, “asking, uh, ‘Would you please give me an interview?’” No surprise there: If you’re an A-list star in America (or from America, in Markle’s case), you gotta talk to Oprah. But duchesses-to-be don’t do tell-alls.

“And you said, ‘I’m sorry, it’s not the right time,’” says Winfrey. Markle agrees, saying, “I remember that conversation very well.” Having been caught up in the palace’s P.R. machine at the time, Markle reveals, she “wasn’t even allowed to have that conversation with you personally, right? There had to be people from the comm[unications office] sitting there.” While Winfrey didn’t get her prewedding scoop, she did get to attend the nuptials. Almost as exciting.

What’s changed since then? “So many things…that we’re on the other side of a lot of life experience that’s happened. And also that we have the ability to make our own choices in a way that, I couldn’t have said yes to you then. That wasn’t my choice to make,” Markle tells Winfrey. “As an adult who lived a really independent life, to then go into this construct that is, um, different than I think what people imagine it to be, it’s really liberating to be able to have the right and the privilege in some ways to be able to say yes. I’m ready to talk.”

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s Oprah interview airs Sunday, March 7, on CBS.