Omid Scobie did name senior royals involved in race row in draft version of book Endgame

Omid Scobie said he did name two royals involved in a race row in a draft version of his book.

Early Dutch versions of Scobie's book Endgame - released on November 28 - named King Charles and the Princess of Wales as the royals who allegedly spoke about the skin colour of Meghan and Harry's unborn child.

It led to Scobie having to defend himself last week, as he originally denied identifying the two royals or ever "submitting" a version of his book with their names.

But writing for the i newspaper on Friday, Scobie said he did not know "early and uncleared text" was provided to the Dutch publisher in order for them to start work on the translation early.

He wrote of his shock and confusion when he found out the royals' names had been published: "I was in the middle of TV interviews in New York on 28 November when a single name surfaced on social media, after it was published in the Dutch edition.

Omit Scobie has previously maintained that the names of the two senior royals were not in the version of the book he submitted, ITV News Royal Producer Lizzie Robinson reports

"My stomach flipped. The 403 pages that I had carefully written, edited, and signed off to the printers made it very clear that any names would not be revealed due to legal reasons."

The Dutch copies naming the royals were pulled from the shelves in the Netherlands. The publisher Xander Uitgevers said in a statement that a translation error had occurred.

Scobie explained the only publisher he worked with directly was the one covering the US and UK and spent almost two months with lawyers to ensure the finished book was "legally watertight".

Other foreign-language publishers were doing the same thing, but their versions "perfectly replicated the completed work", he wrote.

Buckingham Palace has said it is considering "all options".

Scobie used his opinion piece to argue that there should be "proper discourse" and scrutiny of the Royal Family, including addressing the topic of race.

Prince Harry clarified in an ITV interview that he didn't consider talk of Archie's skin colour by his family as "racist", but said he thought his family had issues with "unconscious bias".

Harry and Meghan first made the claim a member of the royal family had asked about their son’s skin colour when they were interviewed by Oprah Winfrey in 2021.

They alleged an unidentified member of the monarchy – but not the late Queen nor her husband, the late Duke of Edinburgh – had, as Meghan said, raised “concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he’s born”.

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