Days after Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s explosive tell-all interview with Oprah Winfrey, Queen Elizabeth has gotten back to work.
Fox News reported that the 94 year-old Queen just took part in a Zoom call with experts and schoolchildren from Thomas Jones Primary School in West London in a virtual event marking British Science Week. The event was being held to showcase the latest pictures from NASA’s mission to Mars and classroom rockets made by the students.
During the Zoom call, the Queen reminded the children studying space exploration about the importance of returning to Earth as she reminisced about the first man to make the trip, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. Just after Gagarin’s historic mission, the Queen invited him to the palace back in 1961, and she was asked during this call what he was like.
“Russian,’’ she said with a smile. “He didn’t speak English. He was fascinating, and I suppose being the first one it was particularly fascinating.’’
Space scientist Maggie Aderin-Pocock, who was hosting the video call, said that it must have been terrifying to be the first man in space and not know what would happen.
“Well, yes, and if you could come back again,” the Queen responded. “That’s very important.”
This came after a tough week for the Queen, as Meghan and Harry had aired the royal family’s dirty laundry in their interview. Meghan claimed that she was hit with racism in the royal family and that an unnamed senior royal had questioned how dark her unborn son Archie would be when she was pregnant with him. She also alleged that she felt so isolated as a royal that she became suicidal at one point in her pregnancy.
After the interview, royal expert Katie Nicholl claimed that the Queen was “privately devastated” by it.
“The queen, who has never given a formal media interview, is said to be privately devastated by the shocking revelations and the potential damage to the reputation of the Royal Family,” Nicholl wrote for Vanity Fair. “She is also deeply concerned for Prince Philip, who remains in the hospital recovering from a heart procedure.”
Though it is not known if the Queen, 94, watched the interview, it’s been confirmed that she was briefed about it by palace aides over breakfast on Monday morning.
“It is understood the queen immediately called a meeting with Charles and William to discuss what to do,” Nicholl added.
COMMENTS POLICY: We have no tolerance for messages of violence, racism, vulgarity, obscenity or other such discourteous behavior. Thank you for contributing to a respectful and useful online dialogue.