Meghan Markle has officially launched her long-awaited podcast, Archetypes, where she is happily going to share her honest truth with the world.
Prince Harry‘s wife did just that with the first episode, where she sat down with her friend and tennis legend, Serena Williams.
Markle decided to speak about a personal and terrifying story that occurred in 2019 when a fire broke in Archie‘s room.
The episode went viral, and it took Queen Elizabeth II and The Palace less than 24 hours to debunk the story by sharing their version of the events that occurred that day.
Sitting down with her pal and soon-to-retire tennis champion, Markle revealed what took place while on a royal tour in Africa.
She was left shaken and in tears upon discovering that the nursery that her baby boy was supposed to be sleeping in caught on fire because of a defunct heater.
She confessed that the experience went from bad to worse when those handling the tour requested that she and Prince Harry carry on the royal engagement because it would have looked bad to cancel despite being emotionally distressed over the incident.
On the debut episode of her podcast, the Duchess of Sussex shared in her own words: “When we went on our tour to South Africa, we landed with Archie. Archie was what, four and a half months old. And the moment we landed, we had to drop him off at this housing unit that they had had us staying in. He was going to get ready to go down for his nap. We immediately went to an official engagement in this township called Nyanga, and there was this moment where I’m standing on a tree stump, and I’m giving this speech to women and girls, and we finish the engagement, we get in the car, and they say, ‘There’s been a fire at the residence.’ What? ‘There’s been a fire in the baby’s room.’ What?”
She said that after giving the speech, she rushed to her son and discovered that everyone, including the nanny, Lauren, was trembling and in tears because of the fire.
Markle said that she and Prince Harry were told to press on with their next engagement even though she was against it.
She slammed The Palace for not understanding that she was scared and worried as a new mother who wanted to stay with her baby.
Markle shared: “I was like, ‘Can you just tell people what happened?’ And so much, I think, optically. The focus ends up being on how it looks instead of how it feels. And part of the humanizing and the breaking through of these labels and these archetypes and these boxes that we’re put into is having some understanding of the human moments behind the scenes that people might not have any awareness of and to give each other a break. Because we did — we had to leave our baby.”
She continued: “And even though we were being moved to another place afterward, we still had to leave him and go do another official engagement.”
Queen Elizabeth and the Monarchy appear to be withdrawing from one of the royal family’s oldest traditions, “never complain, never explain,” when it comes to stories and information being leaked.
Royal sources explained that Markle was inaccurate by using the word fire because: “Others are understood to recall the incident which took place on September 23, 2019 – and while they do not remember there actually being a fire, the heater was certainly smoking and was unplugged and dealt with.”
And one source told the Daily Telegraph that they defended the decision to have Prince Harry and Markle carry out the engagement and not share the incident with the media by saying: “Any announcement about Archie being at risk of fire – or having to cancel an event about people forcibly removed during Apartheid – would have overshadowed the couple’s work.”
The insider continued: “There would undoubtedly have been an expectation for Harry and Meghan to go on with their engagements after months of planning on the ground – but as senior royals, the couple would have had the final say on continuing.”
The podcast could become a new source of tension.
