Harry and Meghan interview fallout

During her interview with Oprah Winfrey, Meghan discussed the different standards applied to her and Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge -- and how glaringly obvious it becomes when you examine media headlines.

When Kate was photographed cradling her baby bump, she was praised as a doting expectant mother -- but when Meghan was photographed doing the same, British media accused her of "pride or vanity."

Winfrey contrasted media coverage of Meghan and Kate eating avocados during their pregnancies. For Kate, it was said to be helping with morning sickness. However, for Meghan, avocados became a fruit linked to water shortages and "environmental devastation."

"You have to laugh at a certain point because it's just ridiculous," Meghan said. "That's a loaded piece of toast," she added.

She said she didn't know why there was a difference in standards for her and Kate.

Life in the royal family was deeply lonely and isolating, and she had little freedom, said Meghan.

She wasn't even allowed to go out for lunch with friends sometimes because she was too heavily covered in the media, she said.

She was told to lay low -- but she hadn't even left the house in months, she said.

In her interview with Oprah Winfrey, Meghan said that she had been silenced after she got married and joined the royal family.

It was only when she joined the institution that she understood she "wasn't being protected," she said.

"They were willing to lie to protect other members of the family, but they weren't willing to tell the truth to protect me and my husband," she said.

She added that she had been welcomed into the family, and that the family members are different from "the people running the institution."

"The Queen has always been wonderful to me," she said. On their first joint engagement, the Queen gave her a gift of pearl earrings and a matching necklace. In the car between engagements, the Queen had a blanket across her knees for warmth -- and "she said, 'Meghan, come on,' and put it across my knees as well," said Meghan. "It made me think of my grandma as well."

This post has been amended to clarify Meghan's statement on the protection offered by the royal family.

Before she met the Queen for the first time, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, said she was taught to curtsy.

"I thought genuinely that that was what happens outside, I thought that was part of the fanfare. I didn't think that's what happens inside. And I said, 'But it's your grandmother.' [Harry] goes, 'It's the Queen,'" she told Oprah Winfrey in the interview.

"That was really the first moment that the penny dropped," she added.

She said she practiced it quickly with Harry before the meeting and did a "very deep curtsy" in front of the Queen.

"We just sat there and we chatted. And it was lovely and easy," she said of their first meeting.

In her one-on-one interview with Oprah Winfrey, Meghan addressed the rumors that she had made Prince William's partner, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, cry during her wedding preparations.

The rumor had made headlines and sparked public hostility -- but it wasn't true, said Meghan. In fact, it was the other way around -- Meghan had been the one in tears.

"A few days before the wedding she was upset about something pertaining to flower girl dresses. It made me cry, it really hurt my feelings," she said.

She added that "There was no confrontation," and that she has forgiven the Duchess of Cambridge, who is known as Kate. She is "a good person," said Meghan.

"I don't think it's fair to her to get into the details of that, because she's apologized," she said -- but the hard part was being publicly and relentlessly "blamed for something I didn't do, but happened to me."

"Everyone in the institution knew it wasn't true," she said -- the institution being the royal family. When Winfrey asked why nobody had spoken up, Meghan replied, "That's a good question."

Meghan and Harry got married three days before the royal wedding that captured the world's attention, Meghan revealed on her interview with Oprah Winfrey.

The vows framed in their home shows the two of them during their private wedding, Meghan said.

Life now in their new home has been "really fulfilling," she added -- the couple has been able to focus on "getting back down to basics."

Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, started her interview with Oprah Winfrey by discussing her wedding day and what it was like to enter the royal family.

The wedding was an "out of body experience," she said. She had woken up that morning, listened to the "Going to the Chapel" song -- but all the while, she and Harry were aware that "this wasn't our day -- this was the day that was planned for the world."

"I went into it naively because I didn't grow up knowing much about the royal family," she said. "It wasn't part of conversation at home it wasn't something we followed ... I didn't do any research. I've never looked up my husband online," she said.

"I didn't fully understand what the job was, what does it mean to be a working royal?" she added. "But I think, there was no way to understand what the day to day was.

She didn't know much about the British royals beforehand, she said -- her mother didn't even know about Princess Diana's bombshell interview. "What do you know about the royals? It's what you read in fairy tales," Meghan said.

Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, announced they were stepping back from their roles as senior royals in January 2020, explaining on Instagram that they hoped to "carve out a progressive new role within this institution."

Under the terms brokered by the palace, the couple had to step back from their royal duties, including military appointments and would no longer represent the Queen. The arrangement -- which would go into effect in the spring -- also saw them drop the titles His and Her Royal Highness and they would no longer receive funds for royal duties.

He added, "What I want to make clear is we're not walking away, and we certainly aren't walking away from you. Our hope was to continue serving the Queen, the Commonwealth, and my military associations, but without public funding. Unfortunately, that wasn't possible."

Hints of unhappiness in court documents: Meghan disclosed in court documents from her successful invasion of privacy case that she felt "unprotected" by the monarchy during her first pregnancy, in the face of "a large number of false and damaging articles."

The legal documents were the first time Meghan had publicly indicated her unhappiness at the support Palace staff were providing to her. More specifically it disclosed a hint of her frustration at the royal protocol not to respond to speculative media reports.

Move to Los Angeles: As the end of the one-year transition period drew closer, friction reignited between the Sussexes now based in Los Angeles and the royals back home in the United Kingdom.

It was announced that Harry and Meghan had agreed with the Queen that they would not be returning as working members of the family. As a result, their honorary military appointments and royal patronages were revoked and would be redistributed.

Oprah Winfrey's interview with Prince Harry and Meghan is airing now on CBS.

Oprah's interview with Harry and Meghan was pre-taped, and CBS has teased preview clips over the past several days.

Viewers in the United States can watch the interview on CBS broadcast stations or online at CBS.com.