View of the open gate to the Estate of Britain’s Prince Harry and his wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, in Montecito, California. Photo by VALERIE MACON / AFP
NEW YORK — Prince Harry and his wife Meghan had scores to settle in their tell-all interview with Oprah Winfrey Sunday — but they also offered a generous glimpse of their “fairytale” new family life far from the monarchy.
In a bucolic segment of the interview, the couple invited Winfrey to their home in California’s oceanside celebrity enclave of Montecito, where they showed off their chicken coop — and its hens rescued from a factory farm.
Filmed in rubber boots and a T-shirt, Harry opened up on life during the pandemic lockdown, and shared his joy at taking baby Archie — who will turn two in May — for long trips to the beach.
“I guess the highlight for me is sticking him on the back of a bicycle in his little baby seat and taking him on these bike rides, something which I was never able to do when I was young,” Harry said.
“And I can see him on the back and he’s got his arms out and he’s like ‘woahhh, chatty, chatty, chatty, palm tree, house’ and all this sort of stuff, and I do, I think to myself ‘wow’.”
Asked to name Archie’s favorite word, Meghan said he is “on a roll.”
“In the past couple of weeks it has been ‘hydrate’ which is just hysterical,” she said.
Offering royal fans a treat, the couple revealed the gender of their second child, chiming in tandem “It’s a girl!” and confirming the baby was due in “summertime.”
Asked if they were “done” with two children, Harry replied: “done.”
“To have a boy and then a girl, I mean what more can you ask for?” he said.
“Two is it!” quipped Meghan.
Meghan wrapped up with a hopeful look to the future, saying that in deciding to exit from royal life, Harry made a decision that “saved my life.”
“And now because we’re actually on the other side, we’ve actually not just survived but are thriving.”
To the question of whether her story “does have a happy ending,” Meghan replied: “It does. Greater than any fairytale you’ve ever read.”