How Oprah Fixed Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s Surprising “Problem”

Oprah Winfrey is spilling the hilarious backstory behind Meghan Markle’s Easter Instagram post this year. Royal watchers might remember the Duchess of Sussex shared a video of her watching a family of ducks cross the road as she mysteriously wished her followers a happy Easter full of “surprises”—an apparent nod to her and Prince Harry’s own Easter hijinks. While making a July 16 appearance on Kelly Ripa’s Let’s Talk Off Camera podcast, Oprah revealed how she helped her royal neighbors with a hilarious “problem” at her Montecito home.

Winfrey said she got a call from Prince Harry on the Saturday before Easter with an unexpected proposition. Imitating the royal’s British accent to the best of her abilities, she told Ripa, “Sorry to bother you, but we have a duck problem here.” Giving a little more detail, Harry explained that a duck had come into his yard and “laid their eggs and had these chicks.”

Realizing that the running water stream in their backyard wasn’t suitable, he asked Oprah if he could bring the ducks over to her pond. However, once Harry and Meghan arrived with their little duck family, chaos—or rather, a wild goose chase—ensued. 

“As he opens the door, the mama duck flies out. And he’s got all the baby ducks in a box,” Winfrey shared. “We’re chasing the mama duck, who is in the front yard and has flown to the other side. We’ve got her ducks. Harry’s running after, Meghan gets out, she’s running after, chasing the mom and trying to get her to come back to her ducks.”

Oprah remembered the trio “running around with the ducks in a box” for half an hour, but in hindsight, called the video “the funniest thing I have ever seen.”

Winfrey has become part of Markle’s inner circle since the Sussexes moved to California, and the Suits alum even credited her with giving her business advice for the launch of As Ever. “At the beginning, I just liked making jam. All I liked to do was just make jam and preserves,” the lifestyle entrepreneur revealed on an April episode of her Confessions of a Female Founder podcast. And it went from, ‘Okay, I’m going to share this jam with lots of friends and family’ to ‘People really like it and it brings me joy. So maybe I can share it more broadly.’”

Markle revealed that a fear of failure hindered her at home, adding, “I thought, ‘I’ll just do small batch jam from home.’ And I had to step back and look at what I was doing and say, ‘Am I playing small because I want to play small? Or am I setting in motion playing small because I’m scared?’”

She recalled that Oprah encouraged her to scale her dream while also helping her overcome her fears around starting the business. “Oprah, who I know as a mentor and friend … she was the one that said, ‘There are tons of things you could put your name on. But for you and how you like to show up for people, once you figure out how to encapsulate your essence, then you’ll know,’” she said.