The Duchess of Sussex has revealed that the first time in her life when she understood what it was like to be "treated like a black woman" was when she started dating Harry. The former actor was speaking on her new Spotify podcast, Archetypes.
Meghan, who started seeing the Duke of Sussex in July 2016, talked to Mariah Carey about their common experiences of being mixed race. Meghan said that her relationship with Harry led to more focus on her race than before.
The American was the first mixed-race person to marry a senior British royal in centuries when she and Harry tied the knot in 2018. The Duke and Duchess both quit as senior working royals two years ago.
It came after she levelled criticism at the royals in her Oprah interview in 2021. She accused an unnamed member of the royal family of making a racist comment about her son Archie’s skin tone before he was born.
Her latest comments on the podcast come the day after an interview with The Cut in which she suggested her children had been referred to by the “N-word” by the media. Discussing the royal rota, the long-established press system that covers official events involving the monarchy, Meghan said: “Why would I give the very people that are calling my children the N-word a photo of my child before I can share it with the people that love my child?
“You tell me how that makes sense and then I’ll play that game.”
Chatting with the Dream Lover singer in the Archetypes episode on divas, they discussed their mixed-race heritage, with the duchess saying: “It’s very different because we’re light-skinned. You’re not treated as a black woman.
"You’re not treated as a white woman. You sort of fit in between.
“I mean, if there’s any time in my life that it’s been more focused on my race, it’s only once I started dating my husband. Then I started to understand what it was like to be treated like a black woman, because up until then I had been treated like a mixed woman and things really shifted.”
Mariah added: “But that’s an interesting thing, a mixed woman, because I always thought it should be OK to say I’m mixed, like it should be OK to say that, but people want you to choose.” Meghan replies: “Yes”.
Carey told Meghan about her childhood, saying: “I didn’t fit in, it would be more of the black area of town, or then you could be where my mum chose to live… the more white neighbourhoods and I didn’t fit in anywhere at all.” Meghan replies: “Yeah. I understand that.”
The pair also compared stories about their hair when they were younger. Meghan said: “Because my hair is so curly and it’s so, so thick, I just remember as a child – because my mum’s black – and so my grandma Jeanette would do my hair, she’d go, ‘Just hold on to the sink’. And I would grip my little hands on both sides – so you would have no luxury of being tender-headed because she would take the brush and just go whoosh, whoosh.”
After a discussion by feminist studies academic Dr Mashinka Firunts Hakopian about divas, Meghan said: “It’s interesting, isn’t it? This idea of power, of a person acquiring power and then needing to be taken down, and how that corresponds to the usage of the word.”
In her controversial interview with The Cut, Meghan said she had been told there was the same jubilation in South Africa when she married Harry as there was when Nelson Mandela was freed from prison. She added that “just by existing” she and Harry were “upsetting the dynamic of the hierarchy” before they stepped down as senior working royals.
The duchess also said she had made an “active effort” to forgive the royal family, “especially knowing that I can say anything”, and saying: “I’ve never had to sign anything that restricts me from talking.”
