BBC correspondent Nicholas Witchell says Meghan should have been ‘less impatient’ with royal aides who ‘bent over backwards’ to support her.

BBC correspondent Nicholas Witchell has claimed Meghan should have been ‘less impatient’ with royal aides who ‘bent over backwards’ to support her.

The veteran broadcaster, 70, also dismissed the claims in Harry and Meghan’s 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey, arguing that race was not a “significant factor” in their decision to leave Britain for California almost four years ago to go.

He rejected from the start the idea that the Palace was against them and praised the Sussexes’ team of courtiers, including Australian private secretary Samantha Cohen and US communications secretaries Jason Knauf and Sara Latham.

Mr Witchell has been bound by ‘the discipline of being a BBC reporter’ for decades and has shed light on what he really thinks about the royal family in an honest interview with the British newspaper. Sunday Times Magazine before his upcoming retirement.

He even revealed how close he came to interviewing Princess Diana for Panorama until he was stepped down in Martin Bashir’s place, sparking an explosive BBC scandal over how the disgraced journalist secured the chat.

Mr Witchell said Harry and Meghan had been a great loss to the palace and wished they had tried harder and given it more time.

He added, “Like her [Meghan] might have just been less impatient, less inclined to see well-meaning people turn against her one way or another. It’s sad, especially the relationship [breakdown] between Harry and William.’

He said the Sussexes’ aides had worked tirelessly and sympathized with Meghan, but in the end it didn’t work out. He said: ‘I really don’t think race was a major factor in it, I think it was more nationality and culture than race.’

But Mr Witchell not only claims, but believes the Sussexes could have tried harder Buckingham Palace should have put more effort into it Harry before he and meghan the Royal family.

He claimed the Queen found it challenging to understand Harry’s pain when the Sussexes decided to leave the UK to live in California.

Mr Witchell described Harry and Meghan’s story as “nasty” but claimed it needed to be covered because there was more interest in the more common “soap opera aspects of the royal family”.

But the royal correspondent praised Prince William and Princess Kate, who he said have a good image and can read the public mood well by focusing on areas such as homelessness, the environment and mental health.

Mr. Witchell said he knows the soap aspect is part of the job, even if he doesn’t feel comfortable with it.

In the midst of a glittering career, there are perhaps two moments in the soap opera when Mr Witchell was the protagonist in himself.

The broadcaster came under fire when a group of gay rights activists stormed the Six O’Clock News studio in 1998 to protest the Section 28 homosexuality law.

As his co-presenter Sue Lawley continued to read the news, Mr Witchell sat on one of the women and covered her hand with his mouth, leading to the front page of the Daily Mirror the next day which read: ‘Beeb man sits on lesbian’.

Another defining moment in his career was when King Charles described him as ‘terrible’ during a photo shoot in the Swiss Alps in 2005.

The journalist had asked a question about the royal family’s upcoming wedding to Camilla Parker Bowles.

Sitting next to his sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, he said: “Bloody people. I can’t stand that man. I mean, he’s so terrible, he really is.’

William remained calm and said politely, “As long as I don’t lose the rings. I have one responsibility and I will definitely do something wrong.”

Mr Witchell claims he was right to ask the question and did his job, but he said the fact was that Charles didn’t like him for years.

They are now said to have ‘made up’ and Charles even wished him well for his retirement on the flight back to Britain from the state visit to Kenya last month.

Mr Witchell also made headlines when he announced the birth of Harry and Meghan’s baby, Prince Archie, in May 2019.

During a live broadcast outside Buckingham Palace, the journalist completely lost his train of thought and returned to the studio, sparking fears online about his health. He suggested that he may have been subconsciously turned off because it was about the Sussexes.

Mr Witchell also addressed the Prince Andrew scandal, claiming the royals had no choice but to break up the Duke over his friendships with pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

And as he moves closer to freedom from the BBC’s shackles of impartiality, he also quoted Gary Lineker’s tweets: about Tory immigration policy, which he compared to Nazi Germany, was ‘terribly unwise’.

The broadcaster, which initially did not want to become a royal correspondent, has been central to the Beeb’s reporting for 47 years.

He joined Huw Edwards in reporting the death of Queen Elizabeth II on September 8 last year, which he was deeply moved by.

He believes Edwards has been a major loss to the BBC since he was suspended following allegations he paid a young person thousands of pounds and received sexual images.

Mr Witchell was the first to broadcast the confirmed news of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales on August 31, 1997, providing live radio commentary from outside Westminster Abbey during her funeral.

He had met Diana several times and the Princess of Wales had even invited him to lunch to discuss the possibility of a Panorama interview.

Before he could accept the invitation, he was told by the Panorama editor that Martin Bashir had been given the now infamous interview.

Bashir’s 1995 Panorama interview with Diana was watched by 23 million people and was hailed as the first of a generation. The princess declared ‘there were three of us in this marriage’ – referring to Charles’ then mistress Camilla – and spoke about her post-natal depression and bulimia.

However, Bashir had shown Earl Spencer, Diana’s brother, forged bank statements to gain access to the princess and then fooled her by spreading a series of slanders and lies, including claiming that Prince William’s watch had been tapped to to record her conversations.

Mr Witchell first joined the BBC after obtaining a law degree from the University of Leeds. He later became a BBC reporter in Northern Ireland in 1979, where he covered the murder of Earl Mountbatten and the IRA hunger strikes, among other things.

He then became a news reporter for television news in 1982, covering the Falklands conflict, as well as Margaret Thatcher’s 1983 general election campaign for the BBC, before returning to Belfast to become Ireland correspondent for the BBC.

He was a founding member of the Six O’Clock News with Sue Lawley in 1984.

Mr Witchell became the main presenter of the relaunched Breakfast News program from 1989 to 1994.

He then returned to the frontline of reporting for the BBC’s Panorama programme, and from 1998 as the BBC’s royal and diplomatic correspondent.