The No. 1 Thing We Learned from Meghan Markle's New Podcast
Here is what the Duchess said, and didn’t say, when Archetypes returned from its hiatus
After unexpectedly spending several weeks in the United Kingdom after the death of her husband Prince Harry's beloved grandmother, Queen Elizabeth, Meghan Markle has returned home to Montecito and is back to work. The Duchess of Sussex opted to delay the fourth episode of her Spotify podcast, Archetypes, to honor the late matriarch. However, on Tuesday, Markle returned to the air with an episode dubbed "Dragon Lady." In it, she discusses the racism surrounding the Asian culture, interjecting her own experiences into the mix. She also interviews Margaret Cho and Lisa Ling. There was also one major surprise in it. Read on to see what it was.
The biggest surprise, courtesy of Meghan's latest podcast, is that there was no mention of the Queen's death or the Royal family in general. This came as a shock to some experts, who believed that Meghan would be sharing her side of the story after seemingly being shunned by her in-laws during the mourning events.
However, some believe she took a thinly veiled swipe at them in the intro. "You want to be weird, or sponge-like, be silly or fierce or curious, or even self-doubting or unsure some days and strong and brave and others. Whatever it is that's up to you," she said. "Just be yourself no matter what any societal framework or archetype or loud voice coming from a small place tells you you should be—be yourself."
In the episode she does reveal that when she was a child, she and her mother would explore Little Tokyo or relax at the Korean spa in Los Angeles, where she was exposed to diversity and learned about the Asian culture.
She did take a swipe at Quentin Tarantino and Jay Roach however. "Movies like Austin Powers and Kill Bill — they presented these caricatures of women of Asian descent as oversexualized or aggressive," she said, adding that the popular films were just two of "many" examples. "This toxic stereotyping of women of Asian descent… this doesn't just end once the credits roll," she continued.
Mike Tindall, husband of Queen Elizabeth's granddaughter Zara, also returned to his podcast The Good, The Bad & The Rugby after the death of his relative. He chose to discuss her death, admitting he had "regrets" about "not asking her so many more things," he said, admitting "having nervousness when you get that lucky seat of being sat next to her." What would he have asked her? "Just going back through history and everything she's possibly seen — 15 prime ministers, I don't know how many presidents. To go through everything," he said.