The Duchess of Sussex has revealed that her mixed-race heritage includes being “43 per cent Nigerian” in a new episode of her Spotify-exclusive podcast, Archetypes.
Meghan Markle told Nigerian-American actor Ziwe that she discovered her roots after having her genealogy done “a couple of years ago”.
Asked if she knew which tribe her ancestors were from, the Duchess she did not but is planning to “start to dig deeper into all of this”.
Ziwe said the news was “huge for our community”, adding: “No, honestly, you do look like a Nigerian, you look like my aunt Uzo. So this is great.”
Meghan has previously spoken about being biracial – her mother is African-American and her father is Caucasian – but did not delve deeper into her roots until more recently.
In a 2015 essay published in ELLE Magazine, the duchess opened up about her mixed-race heritage and said: “Being biracial paints a blurred line that is equal parts staggering and illuminating.
“While my mixed heritage may have created a grey area surrounding my self-identification, keeping me with a foot on both sides of the fence, I have come to embrace that. To say who I am, to share where I’m from, to voice my pride in being a strong, confident mixed-race woman.”
In September 2019, Meghan addressed her racial heritage for the first time since marrying the Duke of Sussex a year earlier, during the couple’s tour of Africa.
In a speech she gave while visiting a charity in Nyanga, she said: “Just on a personal note, may I just say that while I am here with my husband as a member of the royal family, I want you to know that for me, I am here with you as a mother, as a wife, as a woman, as a woman of colour, and as your sister.”
Elsewhere in the podcast, Meghan called out the “angry Black woman” trope and said there is a difference between being “difficult” and being “clear”.
She told actor Issa Rae, who was also a guest on the episode: “You’re allowed to set a boundary, you’re allowed to be clear. It does not make you demanding, it does not make you difficult. It makes you clear.”
