Neither the Queen nor her husband Prince Philip were part of conversations expressing concern over how dark the skin of their great-grandson, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's son Archie, would be, Oprah Winfrey said Monday.

The couple accused the British Royal Family in a sensational interview with Winfrey broadcast Sunday of fretting over Archie's skin tone ahead of his birth. Meghan is African American and the first person of colour to marry into the family.

Harry would not reveal who had raised the concerns, Winfrey told CBS on Monday, but "he wanted to make sure that I knew and if I had an opportunity to share it that it was not his grandmother nor his grandfather that were a part of those conversations."

The allegation was potentially one of the most damaging from a two-hour interview in which Meghan also said she had been denied help during a mental health crisis, speaking frankly of her suicidal thoughts while pregnant with Archie.

Meghan and Harry have long accused the British press of racism in their hostile treatment of her.

The allegation came as Britain has in recent months faced a reckoning over racism and its colonial past, fueled in part by the Black Lives Matter protests in the US and around the world.