Oprah Teases Harry & Meghan About Their Royal Titles

Oprah Winfrey delighted podcast listeners when she playfully mocked Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s surname during her Wednesday appearance on Kelly Ripa’s “Let’s Talk Off Camera” show. The 71-year-old TV star showed how close she is with her Montecito neighbors by making their royal name into a funny tongue-twister.

The lighthearted moment occurred when Ripa asked Winfrey about potentially receiving baby chicks as gifts. Without missing a beat, the billionaire media personality responded that she would “run them straight over to the Sussexes” while deliberately exaggerating the pronunciation by adding extra emphasis to the final syllables of their surname.

The media mogul couldn’t resist poking fun at her famous neighbors’ tongue-twisting surname during a hilarious podcast moment. She stretched out the name with additional “xesssses” at the end, creating a comedic effect that had listeners chuckling. The veteran talk show host didn’t stop there, playfully repeating “the Sussexes” once more for good measure.

This gentle ribbing comes just four months after Markle made headlines for insisting that her celebrity friend Mindy Kaling address her by her married surname rather than her maiden name.

Sussex Name Becomes Running Comedy Theme

The name joke refers to how Harry and Meghan have adopted the name Sussex since Queen Elizabeth bestowed them with the titles in 2018. Winfrey’s playful teasing illustrates how formal royal titles can sound humorous in everyday conversations with neighbors.

The surname has become particularly significant to Meghan, who emphasized its importance during her Netflix cooking show appearance with Mindy Kaling. When Kaling referred to her as “Meghan Markle,” the Duchess corrected her friend: “It’s so funny you keep saying Meghan Markle, you know I’m Sussex now.”

She explained the emotional connection to sharing a family name: “You have kids and you go, ‘No, I share my name with my children.’ I didn’t know how meaningful it would be to me but it just means so much to go, ‘This is OUR family name. Our little family name.'”

Duck Rescue Story Adds Context to Friendship

Following her pronunciation joke, Winfrey shared an entertaining anecdote that further highlighted her close relationship with the couple. She recounted receiving an urgent call from Prince Harry over the Easter weekend about a “duck problem” that required immediate neighborly assistance.

The story involved a mother duck that had laid eggs in Harry and Meghan’s backyard but needed to be relocated to a proper pond environment. “I get a call from Harry, Prince Harry, on Easter Saturday, and he says, ‘Sorry to bother you, O, but we have a duck problem here,'” Winfrey recalled, even adding a playful British accent to her impression.

What began as a simple wildlife relocation turned into what Winfrey described as “the funniest thing I’ve ever seen” when the mother duck escaped during the transfer process. The resulting chase scene involved all three adults pursuing the confused bird around Oprah’s front yard as they tried to reunite her with her ducklings.

“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,” Winfrey explained, describing thirty minutes of comedic chaos that they fortunately captured on video.

Ripa noted the ducks’ incredible fortune: “They’re like, ‘Wait a minute, we show up at Prince Harry’s house and now we’re at Oprah’s!’ Excuse me. That duck knew what it was doing when it laid its eggs.”