On Sunday night, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry sat down with Oprah Winfrey for a bombshell tell-all interview about the British royal family. Hours earlier, a 1996 interview resurfaced in which Sarah Ferguson, the ex-wife of Prince Andrew, gave Oprah her thoughts on life in the royal family, saying that it is “not a fairy tale.”

“You didn’t marry the fairy tale, you married a man,” she said. “You fell in love and married a man, and then you have to come to terms with the fairy tale. Now it’s not a fairy tale, it’s real life.”

Ferguson went on to talk about the many rules in Buckingham Palace, including one that made it so that she couldn’t even open a window if she wanted to.

“The palace from when you look at it from the outside, the windows have to be open in only a certain amount so they are all in line, and I’d come in and throw open all the windows,” she said. “And no, that was wrong.”

As for the British press, Ferguson said that they are “cruel” and “invasive.”

“I must explain that the British press at the moment is completely and utterly cruel and abusive and so invasive,” Ferguson explained. “It is very cruel and very painful when you are going to try and find the feelings within to be on such a public stage.”

When Oprah asked Ferguson why she didn’t just continue to “play the game,” Ferguson replied, “You could do that, and if that’s what suits you, then that’s what suits you.”

“But Diana and I are like rivers, we want to learn more, we want to go around the corner, we are hungry for more,” she said, referring to the late Princess Diana, who passed away just one year later in a car crash. At the time of this interview, Diana was separated from Prince Charles.

Entertainment Tonight reported that in her own interview with Oprah, Meghan talked about how difficult it was for her to be in the British royal family.

“As an adult who lived a really independent life to then go into this construct that is different than I think what people expect it to be, it’s really liberating to be able to have the right and the privilege in some ways to be able to say yes, I’m ready to talk,”