Days after the bombshell interview of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle with US TV host Oprah Winfrey, Duke of Cambridge Prince William on Thursday defended the British royal family and said, “We’re very much not a racist family.” He was speaking to reporters during a visit to a multi-racial school in a deprived area of east London, reports AFP.

The Duke of Cambridge said he had not spoken to Harry since the interview first aired in the United States on Sunday. “No, I haven’t spoken to him yet, but I will do,” he said.

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Queen Elizabeth II issued a statement on Tuesday and said the family was ‘saddened’ to learn the issues Harry and Markle had to face. The statement was conciliatory towards her grandson and his mixed-race spouse.

But it also stressed that “some recollections may vary”, as Buckingham Palace vowed to look into the couple’s assertion that an unidentified royal had asked how dark their unborn son Archie’s skin would be.

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Charles has yet to comment on the controversy but was filmed on Tuesday touring a Nigerian Christian church in London whose pastors are promoting a drive to vaccinate more black people against the coronavirus.

In the interview, Harry also said that his father and brother were “trapped” in a hidebound institution.