Omid Scobie today said he had been the victim of ‘prejudice’ from a ‘very senior’ Royal aide as he was quizzed about the Sussexes’ claims of racism at the palace.
The media ally of Meghan and Harry said the unnamed person ‘found it really peculiar that I spoke as well as I do’ as someone who is mixed race and issued a ‘very loaded comment’ that demonstrated the ‘level of unawareness’ at the palace.
Mr Scobie’s interview took place at the same moment Piers Morgan was sensationally cleared by Ofcom for comments he made about Meghan Markle live on Good Morning Britain.
The broadcast regulator backed his right to free speech after he said that he ‘didn’t believe a word’ of what Meghan told Oprah Winfrey and challenged her claims of royal racism, including that a senior Royal raised concerns about Archie’s skin colour.
The author of Finding Freedom and media ally of Meghan and Harry said an unnamed person ‘found it really peculiar that I spoke as well as I do’
Mr Scobie, 40, who has a Persian mother, was asked by This Morning presenters Rochelle Humes and Alison Hammond whether he was surprised by the Sussexes’ claims of racism.
He said: ‘We knew they had contended with issues surrounding race within the institution.
‘I myself have experienced some prejudice from one or two royal aides in the past, so you can kind of know what Meghan was entering. And so it didn’t surprise me, but I think for it to mention a family member, that was kind of the moment that even myself, my jaw was on the floor – just like Oprah, it was the same reaction.
Asked to clarify whether he had suffered racism, the Finding Freedom author added: ‘I wouldn’t say racist, but I just experienced prejudice. I’m mixed race, there aren’t many mixed race royal correspondents out there.
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‘I would not name that person. Someone very senior within the palace who found it really peculiar that I spoke as well as I do, and that was pretty much how they said it to me.
‘And I’m used to ‘where are you from, where are you really from’ and all that kind of stuff, but that was a very loaded comment – and I’m sure it came not from a nasty place, but it just shows perhaps a level of unawareness within certain quarters of the institution.’
In its ruling this morning, Ofcom called attempts to silence Mr Morgan a ‘chilling restriction on freedom of expression’ after the Duchess of Sussex was among an avalanche of people who complained that his questioning of her account was ‘harmful’ and ‘offensive’ to viewers.
He told MailOnline today: ‘This is a resounding victory for free speech and a resounding defeat for Princess Pinocchios’.
Back in March, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex claimed that a senior Royal had raised concerns about Archie’s skin colour
Meghan, 40, was among the 57,000 people who went to Ofcom after an orchestrated social media campaign spearheaded by his ‘woke’ critics including several Labour MPs, who accused him of racism and sexism.
Within 48 hours of the March 7 Oprah interview, Mr Morgan was forced to quit GMB after he refused to apologise for his ‘honestly held opinions’, costing ITV around 790,000 viewers and millions more in advertising revenue with the ratings gap between GMB and rival BBC Breakfast still growing. On the day Piers quit, GMB was in the lead.
And Ofcom today backed Mr Morgan’s right to ‘rigorously challenge’ the Duchess’s account of suffering suicidal thoughts and claims she experienced racism at the hands of the Royal Family. Complaints that his views on the programmes on March 8 and March 9 were unsuitable for children and incited hatred and racism were also thrown out.
ITV’s left-leaning former Guardian chief CEO Dame Carolyn McCall is under pressure to explain why she tried to suppress the presenter’s free speech after the Duchess of Sussex complained to her directly and allegedly implored her to censure her critic as they were both ‘women and mothers’.
There was complete vindication for the star, 56, who branded Meghan ‘Princess Pinocchio’, as Ofcom ruled: ‘Mr Morgan was entitled to say he disbelieved the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s allegations and to hold and express strong views that rigorously challenged their account’.
And in a damning indictment of his former bosses and the 57,000 people who complained, the watchdog found: ‘The restriction of such views would, in our view, be an unwarranted and chilling restriction on freedom of expression both of the broadcaster and the audience’.
Other allegations roundly rejected by Ofcom included that Mr Morgan were not ‘duly impartial’, he had ‘misrepresented facts’ and that he ‘mocked the American accent’.
Reacting to today’s ruling Mr Morgan told MailOnline: ‘I’m delighted that Ofcom has so emphatically supported my right to disbelieve the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s incendiary claims to Oprah Winfrey, many of which have since been proved to be untrue. This is a resounding victory for free speech and a resounding defeat for Princess Pinocchios.
‘As OFCOM says, to have stifled my right to express strongly held and robustly argued views would have been an ‘unwarranted and chilling restriction on freedom of expression. In light of this decision – do I get my job back?’
He added: ‘I was reliably informed recently that Meghan Markle wrote directly to my ITV boss Dame Carolyn McCall the night before I was forced out, demanding my head on a plate.
‘Apparently, she stressed that she was writing to Dame Carolyn personally because they were both women and mothers – a nauseating playing of the gender and maternity card if ever there was one. What has the world come to when a whiny fork-tongued actress can dictate who presents a morning television news programme?’
