Prince Charles ignored a question on the furor surrounding his family during his first public appearance since Harry and Meghan’s interview

With the Prince wearing a face mask and filmed from a distance, it was difficult to make out much of what he said during the short visit.

Charles drew laughs from people at the center with what sounded like a comment about his age, but did not appear to make any comment about Meghan’s accusations of racism or Harry’s allegation of an estrangement with his father.

The couple cited a lack of support over invasive press coverage and the royal institution’s decision to deny their son Archie a title — and with it his eligibility for protection — as the basis for their decision to relocate from the UK.

Harry meanwhile said his father stopped taking his calls shortly after the couple announced they were stepping back from the royal family last January. He added that he felt “really let down, because he’s been through something similar — he knows what pain feels like.” However, the Duke added that despite the hurt, repairing the relationship in time will be “one of my priorities.”

Prince Charles’ appearance at the London vaccination center shows the royals are not changing their schedules in the wake of the interview, CNN Royal Correspondent Max Foster said.

‘I just didn’t want to be alive anymore’

The palace faced storms on multiple fronts by sunrise in London on Monday.

But the revelations in Sunday’s broadcast may have dwarfed even those in magnitude, as Harry and Meghan’s scorched-earth confessional posed problem after problem for palace staffers and senior royals.

Perhaps the most pertinent was Meghan’s allegation that an unnamed family member had asked about Archie’s skin color and “what that would mean or look like.” She said those discussions were relayed to her from Harry.

Harry declined to name the family member but said he was “a bit shocked” by the conversation. Winfrey said on CBS on Monday morning that “it was not his grandmother nor his grandfather that were part of those conversations.” In Britain, the shadow education secretary, Kate Green, said Buckingham Palace should launch an investigation.

Palace officials are also scrambling to respond to claims from both the Duke and Duchess that their pleas for help with their mental wellbeing and security were ignored by the institution.

Fighting back tears at one point, Meghan said her thoughts of suicide were incredibly difficult to bear, and she was reticent to share them with her husband. “But I knew that if I didn’t say it, that I would do it — and I just didn’t want to be alive anymore,” she said.

They described in emotional detail the most difficult moments — Meghan revealing her thoughts to Harry hours before they were due to go to an event; the Prince arriving home from work each day to find his wife crying while breastfeeding their newborn — and said a “lack of support and lack of understanding” were the reasons they chose to step away.

Missed opportunities

Harry added that he pushed the issue with the royal family. He told Winfrey he believed there were many opportunities for the palace to “show some public support” in the face of continued racial abuse in the press, “yet no one from my family ever said anything. That hurts.”

“I regret believing them when they said I would be protected,” Meghan told Winfrey.

CNN has reached out to the royal family for comment.

Perhaps the only silver lining for the family is that its leader survived the interview relatively unscathed. Harry and Meghan both spoke effusively of the Queen, describing her as caring and kind from the beginning.

“My grandmother and I have a really good relationship, and an understanding and I have a deep respect for her,” Harry said. Meghan said she has spoken to her frequently in the past year, including on the day that Prince Philip was admitted to hospital last month.

Meghan added that despite the ordeal, it was important to differentiate the royal family from “the people running the institution.”

She discussed rumors of a dispute with Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge. Meghan said reports she made Kate cry over the dresses of flower girls at her wedding were untrue, and it was in fact the Duchess of Sussex who cried. But “there was no confrontation,” Meghan said, describing her sister-in-law as a “good person.”

But the evidently strained family dynamic will overshadow the royals’ upcoming engagements. No statements have yet been issued by any of their communications teams in the wake of the interview.

Meghan and Harry (right) with the Queen, Prince Charles and other royals in 2019. During their Oprah interview, Harry detailed a breakdown in relationships with several of his senior relatives.

Breathless reaction in Britain

On Tuesday morning, the British press continued to pore over every detail from the interview and its reverberations.

The Daily Express proclaimed “SO SAD IT HAS COME TO THIS” on its front page, The Daily Mirror ran a headline proclaiming what it sees as the “WORST ROYAL CRISIS IN 85 YEARS” while the Times of London’s headline said, “Palace in turmoil over Meghan’s racism claims.”

On Monday afternoon, several journalists used Boris Johnson’s press conference on Covid-19 to ask for his thoughts on the Oprah interview. The Prime Minister declined to weigh in, aside from saying he’d always had “the highest admiration for the Queen and the unifying role that she plays in our country.”

The media’s treatment of the royal couple formed a significant part of the interview, with the pair both taking aim at sections of the press.

The interview and its aftermath dominated UK daily newspapers again Tuesday.

Harry said the palace is in “fear” of its media coverage, meaning they had little freedom while part of the family.

“To simplify it, it’s a case of if you as a family member are willing to wine, dine and give full access to these reporters, then you will get better press,” Harry said. “There is a level of control by fear that has existed for generations.”

Charles Anson, a former press secretary to the Queen, said on Monday the couple raised “issues that need to be looked at carefully,” but claimed to the BBC that there “wasn’t a strand of racism” within the royal household.

But Julie Montagu, Viscountess Hinchingbrooke, told the BBC that their revelations were “astounding,” and that as an American woman who married into British aristocracy, she could relate to Meghan’s descriptions. “You don’t really know until you’re in it, and I think that she made that very well known last night in her interview,” she said.