Celebrity
Meghan Markle podcast: Duchess of Sussex joins Jamie Kern Lima Show to speak about royal family, Prince Harry, Prince Archie, Princess Lilibet, Princess Diana, writing a memoir, running for office, fame and lifestyle brand
The Duchess of Sussex has sat down to be interviewed for a podcast, making a first for the actress-turned-royal.
Normally in the host’s chair herself, Meghan agreed to be the guest on an episode of The Jamie Kern Lima Show, who is a friend of the duchess’s.
The episode comes one day before Lima appears on the fourth episode of Meghan’s new podcast, Confessions of a Female Founder.
Watch the video above.
READ MORE: Meghan appears on stage in New York without Harry
Over the course of an hour and a half, the duchess and Lima – who founded IT Cosmetics – spoke about their children, marriage, cooking, negative media coverage and Meghan finally addressed a number of burning questions that had been fuelling the rumour mill for years.
Appearing makeup-free and wearing a black jumper featuring the embroidered names of her two children at the collar, Meghan spoke at length about a range of topics.
Here’s everything Meghan revealed.
On her late mother-in-law, Diana
Meghan was introduced as Lima’s “amazing friend”, continuing the duchess’ trend of only talking to those who praise her endlessly, and later as “an American member of the British royal family”.
Lima made sure to let her listeners know that Meghan “had not seen any of the questions beforehand”.
Apart from speaking about her husband Prince Harry and their two children Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, there was little mention of the royal family the two left behind five years ago.
However, Lima brought up the late Princess of Wales referring to comments Prince Harry made about Meghan in comparing his wife to his late mother, Diana.
Lima said: “So Harry said publicly, ‘So much of what Megan is and how she is so similar to my mum. She has the same compassion. She has the same empathy. She has the same confidence. She has this warmth about her.’
“How do you feel about him sharing that?”
Meghan replied, “It’s beautiful. I wish I could have met her.”
On writing a memoir
Towards the end of the chat Lima asked the duchess a number of questions in quick-fire style, “hot questions that everyone wants to know”.
Meghan is the author of a children’s book, The Bench, and she wrote the foreword for a cookbook which raised money for the Hubb Community Kitchen following the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire.
Prince Harry’s memoir Spare became an instant best-seller thanks to a number of damaging revelations about the royal family. Rumours have plagued Meghan since that release in 2023 with suggestions she is working on a tell-all of her own, while there is also speculation Prince Harry might write a follow-up to Spare.
When asked if she’d ever write another book, the duchess said: ”Yes, maybe, for sure!”
She added: “I love right now working on everything in this space of hospitality and home and entertaining, tips and something like that would be really fun.
“Of course, children’s books are great… I think people are often curious if I am going to write a memoir but I’ve got a lot more life to live before I am there”.
Running for office
Since Prince Harry and Meghan’s move to the US in 2020, there’s been talk about Meghan one day becoming a politician.
She and Harry weighed into the US election in 2020, urging Americans to “reject hate speech” in that was “the most important election of our lifetime” (Joe Biden and Donald Trump were going head to head).
Meghan has also come under fire for cold-calling US lawmakers, pleading with them to make paid parental leave a reality, fuelling rumours a career in politics was in her future.
“Would you ever run for office?,” Lima asked Meghan.
“No, no, no,” Meghan said, laughing off the question.
“Never?” Lima pressed.
“No, no, NEVER…OH God, I mean you could say ‘never say never’ [but] I am not interested in that,” Meghan insisted.
Markle or Sussex…and those royal titles
“There’s been so much talk about your name, Meghan Sussex,” Lima said.
Meghan replied, “Yea, it’s great. I heard there are Sussex chickens and I need to get a couple of Sussex chickens to add to my flock”.
“Do you use ‘Markle’ anymore?” Lima asked.
Meghan replied, “No, not since I got married”.
The podcast was also filmed and the full episode is on YouTube.
READ MORE: ‘Meghan has finally learned from her mistakes’
During the interview, an image was shown of a gift basket of ice cream and homemade strawberry sauce she had sent to Lima, with an accompanying note printed on monogrammed paper that said: “With the compliments of HRH The Duchess of Sussex”.
The use of the HRH title appears to be in direct contrast to an agreement made by Prince Harry and Meghan with the late Queen Elizabeth II when they stepped back from their public duties as senior working royals in 2020.
At the time a statement said: “The Sussexes will not use their HRH titles as they are no longer working members of the royal family”.
Meghan on fame
The duchess recalled a chance encounter with Baywatch star Yasmine Bleeth when she was 13 and working at an ice-cream shop, a moment Meghan says shaped the way she deals with her own fans to this day.
Meghan was taking out the garbage when she noticed Bleeth and decided to approach her.
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“And she was so gracious,” Meghan said. “This was such a pivotal moment for me because I never knew I was going to become an actor or someone that people would go up to. But this moment was so influential for me because she turned around and she goes, ‘Hi, sweetheart, what’s your name?’ First thing I learned. I was like, ‘I’m Meghan.’ And that moment, I was like, ‘She cares to know what my name is.'”
“All those years later, no-one teaches you how to be an actor once the show becomes successful, no-one teaches you what to do when someone recognises you.
“That moment with Yasmine Bleeth taught me how important it was for someone to make me feel seen and not brushed off and she might have been asked 100 times that day for a picture or anything else and [now I always say] ‘Hi, what’s your name? I’m Meghan’ because I know how much it means.
“I check in with my young girl self because I want to know how I would want to feel in that moment…and mimic that behaviour. It’s a big privilege and it comes with a lot of responsibility and I want people to feel like they matter.”
On not reading stories about her
Later in the conversation, Meghan spoke about ignoring the majority of articles written about her except for ”maybe 1 per cent” adding “and only if it’s brought to me and said, like, ‘You should really read this, you will learn something from it.’ Or ‘This is really good insight.’ Or ‘I think you’ll appreciate how this writer or journalist really wants to get this story right’.”
Because of this, Meghan said, she considered herself “a good soundboard” for the Prince Harry as her opinions were formed solely “through the lens of loving him” and were not coloured by anything else.
Not having to “prove” anything
Meghan said she is “so done” with having to ”prove” herself.
“We spend so much of our lives trying to prove something,” she said.
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“To prove that you’re enough. You have to prove that you’re pretty enough. You have to prove that you’re smart enough. You have to prove that you’re a good wife, or a good friend, and I was like, ‘I’m just so done with the prove it game.’
“And if you can’t see it, I can’t, I don’t need to prove to you why. That’s your loss.”
On sending Archie and Lili emails
Meghan revealed she has set up email addresses for her children and sends them secret messages every night so they can look back on them when they are older and know how much she loved them.
Speaking of being a mother Meghan says she reads parenting books because “I really want to be good at it”, adding that she hoped her children would grow up to appreciate that “no one has ever loved someone more than the way our mom loved us”.
The duchess continued: “Before I go to bed, every night, I email them,” explaining that her messages contain pictures “you’re not going to frame”, their report cards and memories.
On her marriage with Harry
The duchess described her new life in California with Prince Harry as being like “a honeymoon period” after a difficult few years in the UK.
“You have to imagine, at the beginning it’s all butterflies – but then we immediately went into the trenches together,” she said.
“Right out of the gate, like six months into dating. So now seven years later, when you have a little bit of breathing space, you can just enjoy each other in a new way.”
Five years since Harry and Meghan’s fairytale wedding
The couple is due to celebrate their seventh wedding anniversary on May 19.
Meghan called her husband a ”fox” and said they will be married “forever”.
She said that he is “very very handsome” but that his heart is “even more beautiful”.
What’s next for Meghan
The duchess revealed that the next batch of products to be sold through her business, As ever, would revolve around “hostess gifts and hospitality”.
Ending the chat she said, “Oh my gosh, what is this life? I would never have predicted it but I am grateful for it…even on the hardest days”.
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