NEED TO KNOW
- Oprah Winfrey shared a hilarious new anecdote about her neighbors, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry
- During a podcast with Kelly Ripa, Oprah recalled an unexpected Easter weekend visit involving the Sussexes and surprise visitors
- The group quickly found themselves in a playful chase around Oprah’s backyard—thanks to one determined mama duck
Since Meghan Markle and Prince Harry settled into their Montecito neighborhood in 2020, they’ve shared more than just friendly hellos with their friend and neighbor Oprah Winfrey.
In a recent episode of Kelly Ripa’s podcast Let’s Talk Off Camera, Oprah shared a hilarious story about how a simple act of neighborly kindness turned into a bit of chaos earlier this year.
“I get a call from Harry, Prince Harry, on Easter Saturday, and he says, ‘Sorry to bother you, O, but we have a duck problem here,'” the media mogul recounted, doing her best British accent to impersonate the prince.
“A duck had come into their yard and laid their eggs and had these chicks,” she continued in Harry’s voice. “And he said, ‘Our pond is a stream, we don’t have a pond, so can we bring the ducks over to your pond?'”
Winfrey agreed, sharing that her BFF Gayle King’s grandchildren were visiting over the holiday weekend.
“I said, ‘Wait until I can get the kids to come down to the pond so they can see you put the ducks in the pond.’ And he goes, ‘No, we’re coming right away, we’re coming over!’ ”
Upon the Sussexes’ arrival, things took an unexpected turn.
“As he opens the door, the mama duck flies out. And he’s got all the baby ducks in a box,” Winfrey recounted. “We’re chasing the mama duck who is in the front yard and has flown to the other side. We’ve got her ducks. Harry’s running after, Meghan gets out, she’s running after, chasing the mom and trying to get her to come back to her ducks.”
“And for like half an hour, we’re running around with the ducks in a box. We have video. It’s the funniest thing I’ve ever seen,” she concluded with a laugh.
Meghan shared a clip of the ducks on her Instagram page on Easter; however, Winfrey’s story adds a hilarious new level of context to the video of the baby ducks calmly following their mother across the road.
“The ducks also hit the jackpot,” Ripa added with a laugh. “They’re like, ‘Wait a minute, we show up at Prince Harry’s house and now we’re at Oprah’s!’ Excuse me. That duck knew what it was doing when it laid its eggs.”
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That’s not the only bird-related lore Winfrey has shared with her neighbors. When Ripa joked about gifting her some baby chickens earlier in the interview, the former talk show host said she would simply take them over to Harry and Meghan’s house, given their own collection of backyard fowl.
The Sussexes showed off their custom chicken coop during their 2021 sit-down interview with Winfrey, in which the media mogul noticed the sizable red wooden structure included a sign that read “Archie’s Chick Inn,” named for their now-6-year-old son, Prince Archie.
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