Omid Scobie’s agent shared draft of book naming ‘royal racists’: report

A new report says that the agent for author Omid Scobie sent a Dutch publisher an earlier draft of his controversial new book “Endgame,” which identified King Charles and Kate Middleton as the two royals who allegedly discussed the skin color of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s son, Archie.

The Times U.K. said that Scobie’s agent, United Talent Agency, also sent the Dutch publisher, Xander Uitgevers, a later, final version which did not contain the names. Nonetheless, the Dutch translators apparently based the book’s Dutch-language interpretation on the earlier version, which contained the names of the king and of the Princess of Wales, and that version was released in the Netherlands and Belgium last week.

The Times report appears to answer some questions in the international mystery that erupted last week with the publication of Scobie’s book, the Dutch-language version of which has once again thrust the British royal family into the center of a palace race scandal.

But many other questions remain unanswered. They notably include: Was Scobie honest when he said in interviews last week that he doesn’t know how Charles’ and Kate’s names ended up in the manuscript given to the Dutch publisher? He said he gave his British publisher, Harper Collins, only a manuscript that didn’t contain their names, out of concern for U.K. libel laws, The Times reported. Scobie also denied that this “error” was part of a publicity stunt to boost sales of his book.

Other questions: How did Scobie know that Meghan had named Charles and Kate as the royals who allegedly engaged in conversations that Meghan found “troubling?” Did he learn that from Meghan, Harry or an intermediary? The author has been accused by the U.K. media of being the Sussexes’ “unofficial spokesperson,” especially after he co-wrote “Finding Freedom,” the sympathetic biography of the couple’s exit from royal life.

Through anonymous leaks to the media, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have said they had no “affiliation” with “Endgame,” even though Meghan was forced to reveal in a U.K. court case that she provided information to Scobie for “Finding Freedom.” Harry and Meghan also have insisted, according to another anonymous statement to the Telegraph, that they never intended for Charles or Kate to be publicly identified in “Endgame.”

But the fact that the Sussexes haven’t publicly distanced themselves from Scobie or from “Endgame” has led to accusations that they cooperated with the author on some level, or that they at least “may have given their blessing to (the book’s) largely unsubstantiated Windsor-bashing allegations,” as the Times U.K. editorial board said last week.

Thousands of Dutch-language copies of “Endgame” had to be pulled from bookshelves in the Netherlands and Belgium last week after they named the king and the Princess of Wales as the so-called “royal racists.”

“Endgame” is a scathing critique of the British monarchy, in the wake of Queen Elizabeth II’s death in 2022. It presents Charles as a pampered, “unpopular” leader, Prince William as “power-hungry” and scheming against his father, and Kate as a “Stepford royal wife,” who doesn’t want to work that hard and who was “cold” to Meghan when she married Harry in 2018 and joined the royal family.

The race controversy first erupted in March 2021 during Meghan and Harry’s interview with Oprah Winfrey. Meghan alleged that, while she was pregnant with Archie, a member of the royal family raised with Harry “concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he’s born.” Meghan declined to name the family member, saying, “I think it would very damaging to them.” Since then, it has been alleged that two royal family members were said to have discussed Archie’s skin colot.

The identity of the so-called “royal racist” has hovered over the royal family since Meghan’s interview. In certain ways, it has benefited the Sussexes. Among other things, it led to them receiving a prestigious award from the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights nonprofit late last year for their “heroic” stand against “structural racism” in the monarchy.

However, Meghan and Harry haven’t seemed inclined to publicly revisit those conversations again, not in their 2022 Netflix documentary or in Harry’s memoir “Spare.” In fact, Harry tried to backtrack on the allegations in an interview earlier this year. He blamed the media for saying that Meghan accused the royal family of being “racist.” He said she only raised concerns about “unconscious bias.”

Meghan raised those “unconscious bias” concerns in a letter she reportedly wrote to Charles, immediately following the Oprah Winfrey interview, The Telegraph first reported in April. Meghan was writing in response to a letter from Charles, in which he expressed sadness over the breakdown in relations between the family and her and Harry.

The Dutch-language version of Scobie’s book had the scoop that Meghan’s letter to Charles contained her specific concerns that he and and Kate had “taken part in such conversations about Archie.”