Meghan Markle’s swipe at Royal Family over Archie nursery fire on new podcast

Meghan Markle has relived the horror moment a fire broke out in son Archie’s nursery - and her dismay at the Royal Family’s response.

Meghan Markle has relived the horror moment a fire broke out in son Archie’s nursery.

The long-awaited first episode of Meghan’s Spotify podcast Archetypes dropped today.

In it, the Duchess of Sussex told her friend Serena Williams about the horror moment she found out Archie’s nursery had caught ablaze during the Sussexes’ tour of South Africa.

Archie’s then nanny – named only as Lauren – was looking after the tot in a house in Nyanga, The Sun reported.

Meghan Markle on the Arched

Meghan said: “The moment we landed, we had to drop [Archie] off at this housing unit that they 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.

“We get back our amazing nanny, Lauren. Lauren in floods of tears.

Meghan Markle has revealed her son Archie's nursery caught on fire. Pictures: Getty

“She was supposed to put Archie down for his nap and she just said, You know what? Let me just go get a snack downstairs.

“And she was from Zimbabwe and we loved that she would always tie him on her back with a mud cloth, and her instinct was like, ‘let me just bring him with me before I put him down’.

“In that amount of time that she went downstairs, the heater in the nursery caught on fire.

“There was no smoke detector. Someone happened to just smell smoke down the hallway, went in, fire extinguished. He was supposed to be sleeping in there.”

Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, holds her baby son Archie (Photo by HENK KRUGER / POOL / AFP)

Meghan’s swipe at Royal Family

Meghan explained how she was then separated from her son and forced to attend a royal engagement.

“As a mother, you go, ‘Oh, my God, what?’” she said.

“Everyone’s in tears, everyone’s shaken. And what do we have to do? Go out and do another official engagement.

“I said, ‘This doesn’t make any sense. Can you just tell people what happened?’ And I think the focus ends up being on how it looks instead of how it feels.

“And part of the humanising and the breaking through of these labels and these archetypes and these boxes that we’re put into is having some understanding on 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.”

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle with Archie and Lilibet. (Photo by Alexi Lubomirski/Handout/The Duke and Duchess of Sussex)

In the 57-minute show, Meghan and Serena also “the double standard women face when they are labelled ‘ambitious’”, the description reads.

The “groundbreaking” episode also features conversations with “leading expert on gender” Dr Laura Kray, it adds.

Meghan opens the podcast by stating: “When I was 11 years old, growing up in LA, I saw a commercial that would change the way I understood my place in the world.

“Let me be clear: it wasn’t because this ad was some kind of ingenious piece of marketing – actually, it was just the opposite.

“So, here’s what happened: I was in the 6th grade, I was sitting in my classroom – and we were watching TV, when a commercial came on.”

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle (Photo by Matt Dunham / POOL / AFP)

Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and their baby son Archie Mountbatten-Windsor meet Archbishop Desmond Tutu and his daughter Thandeka Tutu-Gxashe in Cape Town, South Africa. (Photo by Toby Melville – Pool/Getty Images)

The audio from the Ivory Dish Soap Commercial then plays.

Meghan famously appeared in a 1993 Nick News segment addressing the advert – saying it “hurt my feelings”.

She goes on to say: “Hi, I’m Meghan. And this is ARCHETYPES – my podcast about the labels and tropes that try to hold women back.

“Over the course of the next dozen episodes, we’re going to live inside and rip apart the boxes women have been placed into for generations – boxes like diva, crazy, the b-word, sl**.

“Some of these words – these labels – are harsh; they’re abrasive. And I want to get to the bottom of where they come from, why they’ve stuck around for so long, and – importantly – how we can move past them.”

This story was originally published by The Sun and was reproduced with permission