Meghan’s podcast is pure, narcissistic gibberish
‘Archetype’ is an allegory of all the ways in which Meghan, a fierce, brave woman was traduced in the 10 minutes she lived in the UK and was feted as the best thing to happen to the royal family in years.
In hindsight, I should have beaten myself unconscious an hour ago with a copy of Finding Freedom. Instead, I’ve listened to 57 minutes and 28 seconds of Meghan Markle’s syrupy California drawl, while rocking back and forth and moaning softly under my breath. I forget when the Duchess of Sussex first threatened a series of podcasts about how beastly everyone is to women in general – but mostly her – but it’s been hanging over us for a long time.
Yesterday, the first Archetypes podcast finally arrived and, for all the wrong reasons, it was worth the wait. The trailer alone is a ham-fisted, expensively produced shocker. One of the people she interviews over the course of the series, sadly it doesn’t identify which, is heard trilling, “I’m sipping coffee in an underground car park with a duchess!” while Meghan titters modestly in the background. There’s a lot of tittering, mostly in response to someone telling her how wonderful and inspirational she is, and shortly after she’s said much the same to them. But back to the trailer, where someone starts blathering on about the Greek origins of the word hysterical and how it’s all part of some cosmic plot to put women down. Or something. I forget what.
Meghan promises that in the podcasts she’s going to sit down with some of the “smartest, strongest, most passionate people I know”. Much like her children’s book, The Bench, the result is barely literate nonsense. We’re scarcely halfway through when the brickbats start hurtling towards the royal family – and the British. She doesn’t remember, she says, feeling any “negative connotation” to the word “ambitious”, “until I started dating my now husband and, um [laughs], apparently ambition is a terrible, terrible thing – for a woman that is, according to some.”
If you haven’t got the point yet, how about this: “You can pretend to be the perfect version like a Stepford wife and still have the exact same outcome as someone who is being authentically truly themselves. And wouldn’t you rather live with a version of yourself where you can look in the mirror at night?” Eh? Three years on from their wildly successful South Africa tour, she’s still moaning about it. This time we have a new incident: the room that baby Archie was supposed to be sleeping in caught fire. He wasn’t in it and no one was hurt.
“Everyone’s in tears, everyone’s shaken, and what did we have to do?” Meghan says. “Go out and do another official engagement. I was, like, this doesn’t make any sense … the focus ends up being how it looks not on how it feels.” That is as neat a summary of what the royal family does as any I’ve heard.
Finally we cut to the main event, which is billed as a conversation with Serena Williams. Actually, it’s Meghan running through her greatest hits as an empowered woman, living her authentic and best life, thanks to the man she married. She first realised that she was fabulous when she was 11, she says, and I paraphrase her only slightly. Enraged by a sexist washing-up liquid advert, she wrote complaining to the manufacturer “and would you believe it, three months later a new version of the ad appeared on TVs all around the country! I could paint this as a moment of triumph,” she adds, “and don’t get me wrong – it was.”
Her one small action, had “a ripple effect far beyond me”, which may resonate with the Palace staff who accused her of bullying – accusations she vehemently denies. Tom Bower’s recent book about Meghan, Revenge, cast doubt on the veracity of aspects of the washing-up story, and a fair few of her other stories too, but no matter. This is Meghan’s truth. The ad, she says, “changed the way I see my place in the world”. For the purposes of today’s podcast, that place appears to be somebody’s wife, seeing as the closing credit is “executive producer Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex”.
But before then, to the “conversation” with her dear, dear friend Serena Williams. If this is what counts for conversation in California then no wonder they all look bored. Women, we learn, are “oftentimes” called crazy and hysterical and divas and derided as ambitious climbers and, Meghan adds wryly, but with top notes of saddened humility, “I know a thing or two about these labels myself.” The two of them agree that they are both wonderful, and how remarkable it is that in a world which “holds women back and tells women who or what they can be”, they have nevertheless achieved so much by, respectively, being a supremely talented tennis player and winner of 23 grand slams, and marrying a prince.
We learn about “the layers that thrive within all of us”, by which I think she means “personality” and that “none of us is alone”, which will be a great comfort to many in a cost-of-living crisis. Just when you think we’re finally getting to Serena Williams – her dear, dear friend, who we can at least agree is “the greatest of all time, tennis superstar, cultural icon” – it’s back to Meghan and a story about how the nuns at her old school refused to be beholden to the patriarchy and instead chose to live, you guessed it, authentically.
Obviously Prince Harry is shoehorned in, because otherwise what’s the point, and he tells the greatest female tennis player of all time “I like what you’ve done with your hair! That’s a great vibe!” No words can describe my feelings at that point. “H” also apparently spent an hour in the garden in Montecito helping Serena with her decision to “evolve” away from being a supreme athlete and tennis superstar, and no doubt his insights on that front proved invaluable. A professor of equity and gender pops up to say that when men have families they get a pay rise but women face a backlash. Meghan talks about something called “dimensionality” and other aspects of “being a fully fledged” human being.
“You made pregnancy look sooo sexy,” Meghan gushes, “I was just so tired.”
“You were under a lot of stress,” Serena says.
“It’s true,” Meghan says.
Just when you think, “Dear God, will it never end?”, it does, with Meghan’s distillation of the previous hour. It seems to be an allegory of all the many ways in which she, a fierce, strong, brave woman was wronged and traduced in the ten minutes she lived in the UK and was feted as the best thing to happen to the royal family in years. Her podcast is pure, narcissistic gibberish and next week she’s “in conversation” with Mariah Carey. Shoot me now.
The Times
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