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By Jack Royston
Chief Royal Correspondent
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Prince Harry told primatologist Jane Goodall that his son Prince Archie was "my little African child" after he was born, according to the former magazine editor Tina Brown.
Brown told Katie Couric's YouTube show she went for lunch with Goodall before the scientist's death in October, and the subject of Harry and Meghan Markle's royal exit came up.
Goodall was a friend of the couple and was already known to have visited them after Archie's birth, but Brown's account of what was discussed had not been made public previously.
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A spokesperson for the Duke of Sussex said: "The Duke of Sussex has never said anything remotely resembling what is being claimed.
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"Tina Brown knows exactly what she’s doing by inventing these words and attributing them to a highly respected woman who is deceased and unable to correct the record."
Brown in turn responded with a clarification issued to The Royalist Substack blog, run by Tom Sykes: "On Katie Couric’s podcast on Wednesday the 17th, I recounted what Jane Goodall said to me in June of this year about Prince Harry.
"She remembered, affectionately, Harry saying when Archie was born, ‘I want you to come and meet my African child.’ She actually said ‘Africa child’, but I was speaking too quickly. Aside from that inadvertent mistake, everything else in Ms. Goodall’s conversation with me, I rendered accurately."
Tina Brown's Comments About Prince Harry and Jane Goodall
"Jane Goodall before she died, I had a lunch with her," Brown told Couric, "and she said that she went to see... she was one of the only people outside the family that went to see Archie when he was born. And Harry said, 'This is my little African child.'
"It's going to be my child who essentially... you know... wild child, essentially... they were going to have this time together, living a life off the grid as it were. She said she was absolutely stunned when he chose the life that he did."
It is not possible to verify Brown's account with Goodall because she has passed away.
Brown told the anecdote as part of a wider argument that the royals had long been aware of the possibility Harry might want to leave royal life, but had not expected him to pursue a celebrity lifestyle in America.
"I'm told that the Queen always thought that Harry would go off and want to be out of the royal family," Brown said. "But they all thought that he would do something like... they all expected him to kind of go to Africa and become a person who focused on conservation of animals in Africa and live a kind of off-the-grid life, is what they all thought.
"Nobody expected him to go to Montecito and live the opposite of the off-the-grid life, which is the kind of celebrity life. And I don't think that Harry thought he was going to do that either."
Prince Harry and Meghan's Statement About Jane Goodall Meeting Prince Archie
Harry and Meghan described inviting Goodall to meet Archie in their tribute to Goodall in October, following her death. A statement released to People read: "Dr. Jane Goodall DBE was a visionary humanitarian, scientist, friend to the planet, and friend to us.
"Her commitment to changing lives extends beyond what the world saw, and also to what we personally felt. She held our son, Archie, when he was first born, and showered love and care to those who were privileged to know her. She will be deeply missed."
Harry and Goodall attended a meeting together at Windsor Castle on July 23, 2019, two months after Archie was born.
Meghan said in a 2022 episode of her Spotify podcast Archetypes that she had recently discovered she was 43 percent Nigerian. It is not clear whether Harry knew this when he met Goodall.
"I just had my genealogy done a couple years ago," Meghan said, adding that she was "43 percent Nigerian."
"I'm going to start to dig deeper into all this because anybody that I've told, especially Nigerian women, are like 'What?'," Meghan added.
Prince Harry's Relationship With Africa
Africa has been a charged subject for Harry and the royals in the past, often described as a home away from home for Harry and a place where he sought space to grieve after the death of his mother, Princess Diana.
However, he also described in his book, Spare, how a conflict with William arose from the fact that they both wanted to pursue charity projects in Africa.
"One small problem," Harry wrote, "Willy. Africa was his thing, he said. And he had the right to say this, or felt he did, because he was the Heir. It was ever in his power to veto my thing, and he had every intention of exercising, even flexing, that veto power. We’d had some real rows about it."
After a friend suggested they could both pursue projects in Africa, Harry said, "Willy had a fit." William was quoted as saying, "Because rhinos, elephants, that’s mine!"
"It was all so obvious," Harry added. "He cared less about finding his purpose or passion than about winning his lifelong competition with me."
Update 12/18/25 2:03 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with comment from a spokesperson for the Duke of Sussex.
Update 12/19/25 7:22 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with Tina Brown's response to comments by the Duke of Sussex's spokesperson.
Do you have a question about King Charles III and Queen Camilla, Prince William and Princess Kate, Meghan and Harry, or their family that you would like our experienced royal correspondents to answer? Email royals@newsweek.com. We'd love to hear from you.
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