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Late-night hosts react to Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's Oprah interview

"It was a big event, mainly because they revealed the baby's gender in California without burning down an entire forest," Jimmy Fallon joked.

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Abrar Al-Heeti is a technology reporter for CNET, with an interest in phones, streaming, internet trends, entertainment, pop culture and digital accessibility. She's also worked for CNET's video, culture and news teams. She graduated with bachelor's and master's degrees in journalism from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Though Illinois is home, she now loves San Francisco -- steep inclines and all.
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Abrar Al-Heeti
3 min read
Meghan Markle Prince Harry Oprah

US late night hosts had a lot to say about Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's interview with Oprah on Sunday.

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Like millions of other viewers around the world, late-night hosts in the US had plenty say about Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's explosive interview with Oprah. Some of the biggest revelations included Meghan saying palace representatives didn't offer help when the pressures of royal life led her to suicidal thoughts, and there were "concerns and conversations about how dark [son Archie's] skin might be when he's born." The couple also shared the royal family cut off Harry and Meghan's security detail when they moved to Canada and then California. 

"Well guys, I have some news to make people feel a little better," Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon said Monday, "and that is the royal family is just as messed up as everyone else's." 

The televised interview with Oprah, which aired on CBS, drew in a whopping 17 million viewers. "That's one viewer for every commercial break," teased Late Late Show host James Corden, referring to the frequent breaks between each revelation. Ratings were so great, Fallon said ABC offered the couple their own show, Royal-ish. 

Jimmy Kimmel took a jab at the palace for expressing concerns about the complexion of the couple's then-unborn baby, saying, "Imagine after centuries of inbreeding, all of a sudden these people are concerned about the color of a baby's skin."

Late Show host Stephen Colbert also commented on the situation, saying, "It's never good when the British ruling class thinks someone is too dark. They steal their land and make them play cricket."

The hosts also remarked on Meghan saying she approached human resources at Buckingham Palace in an effort to get mental health support, only to be told she wasn't an employee and couldn't be helped.

"You're saying Buckingham Palace has HR?" Colbert said, echoing the bewilderment many viewers felt on learning this. "How long has that been around? Because you'd think someone in human resources might've stepped in to tell Henry VIII that chopping off your wife's head could be interpreted as a hostile work environment." 

Kimmel also joked, "It's funny that the royal palace has HR, and it's just as unhelpful as HR every place else."

British tabloids have relentlessly targeted Meghan with racist, insensitive remarks, and have regularly painted her as the villain. Meghan said during the interview with Oprah that after an incident in which tabloids falsely put the blame on her for making Kate Middleton cry, the royal family didn't correct the record. She called that a "turning point" in her relationship with the palace. 

Harry noted during the interview that racism from tabloids was a big part of their decision to leave the UK. 

"You know things are bad at Buckingham Palace if they came to America to get away from racism," Kimmel joked. "It's like trying to get some peace and quiet at Chuck E. Cheese."

In lighter news, Meghan and Harry also revealed the gender of their second child during the interview, whom they said is a girl due to arrive in the summer. 

"It was a big event, mainly because they revealed the baby's gender in California without burning down an entire forest," Fallon joked, referring to an incident last year in which a pyrotechnics at a gender reveal party sparked a massive California wildfire covering over 22,000 acres

The interview, which is available to watch for free on CBS.com and on the CBS app (on iOS and Android), is sure to prompt more conversation and commentary, and undoubtedly more jabs at the royal family, at least from this side of the pond.