Prince Charles' royal office has dismissed as "fiction" new claims he was the one who speculated on the skin colour of Prince Harry and Meghan's future children.
US author Christopher Andersen alleges in his new book that Charles made the comment on the day Harry and Meghan's engagement was announced in November 2017.
In the book Brothers And Wives: Inside The Private Lives of William, Kate, Harry and Meghan, Andersen writes that Prince Charles said to wife Camilla, "I wonder what the children will look like?".
When Camilla replied, "well, absolutely gorgeous, I'm certain", the book says Charles replied, "I mean, what do you think their children's complexion might be?", the New York Post's Page Six website reported.
A spokesman for Clarence House, where Charles and Camilla live, said of the claim: "This is fiction and not worth further comment."
Harry and Meghan accused a member of the royal family - not the Queen or Duke of Edinburgh - of racism in shocking claims made during their Oprah Winfrey interview earlier this year.
Meghan said that when she was pregnant with Archie an unnamed member of the royal family raised "concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he's born".
Asked whether there were concerns her child would be "too brown" and that would be a problem, the duchess said: "If that is the assumption you are making, that is a pretty safe one."
Pushed by Winfrey on who had those conversations, Meghan refused to say, adding, "I think that would be very damaging to them".
Harry also refused to give further details.
"That conversation, I am never going to share. At the time it was awkward, I was a bit shocked."
Charles has arrived in Barbados ahead of a historic ceremony which will see the country swear in its first president and formally end the Queen's role as its head of state.
Australian Associated Press
