It began as a lighthearted Easter memory — but Oprah Winfrey’s recent podcast anecdote involving Prince Harry and Meghan Markle quickly stirred speculation about royal egos and tricky surnames.
During an appearance on Kelly Ripa’s Let’s Talk Off Camera, the 71-year-old talk show legend recounted a quirky holiday moment when Prince Harry reached out to her about a rather peculiar dilemma involving baby ducks. According to Oprah, Harry phoned her on Easter Saturday, asking if they could bring over some ducklings because their own property had a stream, not a proper pond.
“‘Sorry to bother you, O,’” she recalled Harry saying, “‘but we have a duck problem here. Can we bring them over to your pond?’”
At the time, Oprah happened to have guests — namely, the grandchildren of her longtime friend Gayle King — and invited Harry and Meghan to wait until the kids could come watch. But Harry wasn’t having it. “No, we’re coming right away,” he reportedly insisted.
The story prompted laughter all around, especially when the topic shifted to Easter traditions. When Kelly asked whether Oprah would like someone to gift her baby chicks, the media mogul responded, chuckling, “I’d run them straight to the Sussexes.”
That’s when things got a little cheeky. Oprah repeated the couple’s family name — “the Sussexes” — but exaggerated the pronunciation with extra “x” sounds, poking fun at the tongue-twisting pluralization of their title. While her tone remained playful, some listeners thought the jab might’ve been a little too pointed for such close friends.
As rumors swirled online about a supposed falling-out, a spokesperson for Harry and Meghan quickly shut them down, stating that reports of the couple being offended were “categorically untrue.” Despite the Internet frenzy, it seems there’s no royal rift brewing.
Why the Sussex surname matters more than ever
Beyond the Easter pond drama and Oprah’s harmless teasing, the conversation reignited public interest in the couple’s family name — one that Meghan recently emphasized holds deep emotional significance.
In a March interview with PEOPLE magazine, the Duchess of Sussex shared that she, Harry, and their children — Archie, 6, and Lilibet, 3 — have been quietly using “Sussex” as their shared surname. The title was granted to the couple by Queen Elizabeth II on their wedding day and has since become more than just a formal designation.
“It’s our shared name as a family,” Meghan explained. “And I guess I hadn’t recognized how meaningful that would be to me until we had children. I love that that is something that Archie, Lili, H and I all have together.”
She echoed that sentiment in her Netflix series As Ever, Meghan, when correcting actress Mindy Kaling during a conversation. After Mindy repeatedly referred to her as “Meghan Markle,” the Duchess gently clarified, “You know I’m Sussex now.”
“It just means so much,” she continued. “You have kids and you go, ‘No, I share my name with my children.’ It’s our little family name.”
As for the pronunciation confusion? Grammatically, “Sussexes” is correct when referring to the family as a whole — just as you’d say “the Joneses” or “the Felixes.” It may be awkward to say out loud, but it’s perfectly proper on paper.
While Oprah’s pond joke may have momentarily stolen headlines, the real story might be how seriously Harry and Meghan take their shared identity — not as royals in exile, but as a family choosing to define themselves on their own terms.