The Duchess of Sussex has confessed she had suicidal thoughts at the height of her crisis in the monarchy.

Meghan told Oprah Winfrey she contemplated taking her own life saying : “I just didn’t want to be alive anymore.”

Asked explicitly by Winfrey if she was thinking of self-harm and having suicidal thoughts at some stage, Meghan replied: “Yes. This was very, very clear.

“Very clear and very scary. I didn’t know who to turn to in that.”

She said she later reached out to one of the best friends of the late Diana, Princess of Wales.

Meghan said she also asked the palace to seek professional help, and said she no longer had access to personal effects such as her passport after joining the family.

“All that gets turned over,” she said.

The duchess’ admission was one of a series of astonishing claims that included Harry had conversations  about how dark the skin colour of their son might be.

Meghan said there were “several conversations” about her son Archie’s skin tone, adding revealing who was involved in the talks “would be very damaging to them”.

During their televised chat, Meghan also described how the Duchess of Cambridge made her cry ahead of her wedding.

Reports circulated ahead of the Sussexes’ nuptials that Meghan left Kate in tears at Princess Charlotte’s bridesmaid dress fitting.

But Meghan told Winfrey the “reverse happened”.

And when the Duke of Sussex joined the interview he said his father, the Prince of Wales, had stopped taking his calls but that he had not “blindsided” the Queen when announcing he and Meghan were stepping back as senior working royals.

In a lighter moment the couple revealed they are expecting a girl.

During a discussion about one-year-old Archie and his role in the royal family, Meghan told Winfrey there had been “concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he is born”.

A stunned Winfrey asked “who is having that conversation?”

Meghan said there were “several conversations” with Harry about Archie’s skin tone and “what that would mean or look like”.

Pushed by Winfrey on who had those conversations, Meghan said “I think that would be very damaging to them”.

She added: “That was relayed to me from Harry, those were conversations the family had with him, and I think it was really hard to be able to see those as compartmentalised conversations.”