Alexandra Burke details moving encounter with Meghan Markle

Alexandra Burke has spoken of the moving encounter she had with Meghan Markle at her final royal engagement.

The X Factor winner, 32, reflected on the time she met Meghan, 39, last year at Westminster Abbey for the Commonwealth Day Service, where the Duchess of Sussex gave her a hug, in a column for The Sun on Saturday.

She gushed: ‘Meghan is the nicest person ever. When we met at the Commonwealth Service, she said wasn’t allowed to hug me because it was at the start of coronavirus — but it was right at the start, before everyone really knew what was going on.

‘So she said, “I’ve been advised not to hug or touch anyone, but I’m going to hug you anyway”, and then she squeezed me. She was going through a lot, and thanked me for my support.’

Alexandra added that she thanked Meghan for being an inspiration to young, black women around the world, and told her that she helped make them feel like they could do anything.

She went on: ‘I just thanked her, and told her to continue doing what she’s doing, and that all that mattered was that she was happy. She’s such a lovely girl. She’s everything.’  

On Monday, Alexandra said she felt ‘sick to her core’ after hearing Meghan’s claims that a member of the Royal family expressed concerns over the colour of son Archie’s skin.

The singer was speaking during an appearance on Lorraine when talk soon turned to Prince Harry and Meghan’s explosive interview with Oprah Winfrey, which aired in the US on Sunday.

Alexandra told how as a black woman she felt ‘sick’ at hearing Meghan’s ‘heartbreaking’ racism claims, stating her shock that ‘we’re in 2021 and still having these conversations’. 

Meghan used her bombshell Oprah Winfrey interview to accuse the Royal Family of having ‘concerns’ about ‘how dark’ Archie’s skin would be before he was born because she is mixed-race and Harry is white. 

The Duchess of Sussex also described her ‘pain’ that officials had denied Archie the title of prince and accused Buckingham Palace of failing to protect him by denying him 24/7 security.

Meghan refused to say which royal had the conversation with Harry about Archie’s skin colour, claiming it would be ‘damaging’ to the person in her husband’s family who raised it. 

But Oprah has since revealed Prince Harry asked her to make clear that neither the Queen nor Prince Philip made the remark.

Discussing the interview, Alexandra told Lorraine, 61: ‘I’ve seen the clips and all the headlines. It’s heartbreaking and very disappointing. 

‘We’re in 2021 and still having these conversations. For me as a black woman hearing that, it made me feel sick to my core. 

‘I’m an ambassador for the Royal Commonwealth Society, I’m a small voice there, and this shows we have a lot of work to do.’

Sharing her support for the Duchess, Alexandra continued: ‘It’s shocking Meghan had to go through that. 

‘Hearing her say she was suicidal and talking about mental health, it’s mind-blowing. 

‘I wish them both the best and hope they can find peace and happiness in their lives for their sake and their children as well.’ 

Prince Harry claimed during the interview that racism drove him and Meghan out of Britain and the Queen was too busy to meet him in a series of unseen clips from his bombshell Oprah Winfrey interview.

The Duke of Sussex accused the Queen of snubbing him after she was allegedly overruled by royal aides when she tried to invite him and Meghan on a trip to Sandringham after they announced they were stepping down.

Harry said he received a message from the Queen saying he wanted them to visit ‘the moment you land’, but he later got a message from his private secretary at the time saying the trip had been cancelled.

Harry said he then rang the Queen from Frogmore cottage and she said: ‘Yes, there’s something in my diary that I didn’t know that I had.’

The prince claimed the exchange showed that even the Queen could be overruled.

He said: ‘When you’re head of the firm there is people around you that give you advice. And what has also made me really sad is some of that advice has been really bad.’ 

Meghan also told Oprah she ‘couldn’t be left alone’ and told her husband she ‘didn’t want to be alive anymore’ before claiming the Buckingham Palace HR department ignored her plea for help because she wasn’t a ‘paid employee’.

Describing how she considered ending her life believing it ‘was better for everyone’, Meghan said: ‘I knew that if I didn’t say it, that I would do it. I just didn’t want to be alive anymore. 

‘And that was a very clear and real and frightening constant thought. I remember how he just cradled me. I said that I needed to go somewhere to get help. I said that ‘I’ve never felt this way before, and I need to go somewhere’. And I was told that I couldn’t, that it wouldn’t be good for the institution’.

She said that after confiding in her husband, she was forced to go to the Royal Albert Hall for a charity event in January 2019, claiming photos from that night ‘haunt me’. 

She told Oprah she later reached out to one of the best friends of Diana, Princess of Wales, because she felt unsupported by the palace.

She said: ‘When I joined that family, that was the last time I saw my passport, my driving licence, my keys – all of that gets turned over’. Meghan said Harry had ‘saved my life’ by agreeing to move to Los Angeles.

Meghan also sensationally claimed that a relative of Harry asked him ‘how dark’ their unborn child would be with the Duchess claiming Archie being mixed-race was a ‘problem’ for the royals after Oprah asked her if they were worried their son would be ‘too brown’.

The former Suits star said she would not name the person because it would be ‘too damaging’ for them. But she confirmed that the duke was asked the question – ‘how dark his skin might be when he’s born’ – ‘by family’.

She then said Archie may have been denied the title of prince because he is mixed-race, but has never been told. Harry was also asked to identify the culprit but said he didn’t feel ‘comfortable’ discussing it.

In the most extraordinary royal interview since Diana spoke to the BBC’s Martin Bashir in 1995, Meghan said her sister-in-law Kate made her cry in a row over dresses for the flowergirls, including Princess Charlotte, before her Windsor wedding. 

She said: ‘She (Kate) was upset about something, but she owned it, and she apologised. And she bought me flowers’.

Harry also laid into his own family, claiming their ‘lack of support and understanding’, the couple’s mental health problems and fears ‘history repeating itself’ with Meghan like his mother Diana, who died in 1997.

Harry also said he felt ‘very let down’ by his father Prince Charles, accusing him of refusing to take his calls and and then ‘cut him off’ financially when they emigrated.

He said: ‘My father and brother. They’re both trapped’ and added that his mother Diana would be ‘angry and sad’ that he felt he had to leave the royal family, but ‘she saw it coming’. Harry said: ‘All she’d ever want for us is to be happy’, adding that his wife had ‘saved me’, declaring: ‘I myself was trapped, as well. I didn’t see a way out’.

The prince said he had to sign multi-million dollar deals with Netflix and Spotify because he was spending his inheritance from Princess Diana and claimed the palace suggested that Meghan should go back into acting to pay the bills.

Asked about his relationship with Prince Charles, Harry said they were now speaking again, adding: ‘There’s a lot to work through there, you know? 

‘I feel really let down, because he’s been through something similar. He knows what pain feels like, and Archie’s his grandson. 

‘I will always love him, but there’s a lot of hurt that’s happened. And I will continue to make it one of my priorities to try and heal that relationship’. 

When asked about if he remains close to William he replied: ‘I love William to bits. He’s my brother. We’ve been through hell together. I mean, we have a shared experience. But we’re on different paths’.

Meghan claimed she had been completely ‘naive’ about what royal life was like, claiming she didn’t know about needing to curtsy for the Queen and being taught by Fergie minutes before meeting Her Majesty for the first time in 2017. The Duke and Duchess said they speak to her regularly on Zoom – but hinted at little contact with the other royals.

The Sussexes also revealed they were already planning ‘Megxit’ just six months after they married in May 2018 and Meghan compared life in Kensington Palace to lockdown in the Covid world today because she was ‘banned’ from going to lunch with friends. 

But said their new life was a ‘happy ending’ for after a journey ‘greater than any fairytale you’ve ever read.

The Duchess was greeted by Oprah as a friend when the show began and admired her growing baby bump, before the host said that while they knew each other none of the questions had been shared in advance.

The Duchess of Sussex sat alone as she claimed she entered the Royal Family ‘naively’ and didn’t do any research about her husband or the institution before entering it.

Describing meeting the Queen for the first time at Windsor and that she was shocked when she was told by Harry would need to curtsy to Her Majesty, and was taught by her husband’s aunt Fergie.

Describing her initial experiences of becoming part of the royal family, Meghan said: ‘I will say I went into it naively, because I didn’t grow up knowing much about the royal family.

‘It wasn’t something that was part of conversation at home, it wasn’t something that we followed.’

Meghan said she did not research Harry or the family beforehand, and had little expectation of what becoming a working royal would involve.

She said: ‘I didn’t fully understand what the job was, what does it mean to be a working royal, what do you do?

‘I didn’t romanticise any element of it, but I think as Americans especially – what you know about the royals is what you read in fairy tales.

‘It’s easy to have an image of it that’s so far from reality and that’s what was really tricky over those past few years, when the perception and reality are different things and you’re being judged on the perception but you are living the reality of it, there’s a complete misalignment and there’s no way to explain that to people.’ 

For confidential support in the UK, call the Samaritans on 116123 or visit www.samaritans.org for details; In the US call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (1-800-273-8255)