The Duchess of Sussex claimed there were “several conversations” about her son’s skin tone, but said revealing who was involved in the talks “would be very damaging to them”.

Meghan made the allegation during her and Harry’s highly-anticipated interview with Oprah Winfrey that aired in the US in the early hours of Monday morning.

During a discussion about one-year-old Archie and his role in the Royal Family, Meghan told the talk show host that there had been “concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he is born”.

A shocked Oprah asked: “Who is having that conversation?”

Meghan replied by saying there were “several conversations” with the Duke of Sussex about Archie’s skin tone and “what that would mean or look like” for the family.

Pushed on who had conducted those conversations with Harry, Meghan said: “I think that would be very damaging to them”.

She added: “That was relayed to me from Harry, those were conversations the family had with him, and I think it was really hard to be able to see those as compartmentalised conversations.”

Asked whether there were concerns that her child would be “too brown” and if that would be a problem, Meghan said: “If that is the assumption you are making, that is a pretty safe one.”

When the Duke of Sussex joined the interview, Winfrey asked him to disclose the content of the conversation Meghan referred to earlier about the colour of Archie’s skin.

Harry said: “That conversion, I am never going to share. At the time it was awkward, I was a bit shocked.”

He added that he was “not comfortable” sharing the question he was asked by the unnamed person, but said it happened “right at the beginning” of their relationship.

He also claimed that none of his relatives spoke out in support of Meghan following the racism he said she faced in the media.

The prince said members of his family suggested Meghan “carried on acting because there was not enough money to pay for her”.

He added: “There were some real obvious signs, before we even got married, that this was going to be really hard.”

Meghan also suggested she and Harry wanted Archie to be a prince so he would have security and be protected.

The duchess expressed her shock at “the idea of our son not being safe”, and the notion that the first member of colour in this family would not be titled in the same way as the other royal grandchildren.

Archie – who is seventh in line to the throne – is not entitled to be an HRH or a prince due to rules set out more than a century ago by King George V.