Meghan Markle appears to have taken issue with comments made by people who say she was “so lucky” to be chosen by her husband Prince Harry. The 41-year-old released the latest episode of her Archetypes podcast on Spotify on Tuesday as she sat down with actress Mindy Kaling to discuss the term “singleton,” which is often used to describe a woman who is not married.
The topic brought on Markle’s stance on remarks she heard after announcing her engagement to Harry in 2017, recalling how she was constantly told how lucky she was to have bagged herself the Duke of Sussex. “When I started dating my husband and we became engaged, everyone was just like, ‘Oh my God, you are so lucky he chose you!’ And at a certain point, after you hear it a million times over, you’re like, ‘I chose him too!”
While those comments could have gotten to Markle, she said that Harry would often shower her with uplifting words that helped her to retain her self-confidence, adding, “I had a partner who was countering that narrative for me and going, ‘They’ve got it all wrong. I’m the lucky one because you chose me.” Markle emphasized that a woman being made to feel lucky when a man deems her worthy to date was “gendered, archetyped and stereotyped.”
The interview’s release comes on the same day Markle and Harry left London and flew to Düsseldorf, Germany, as they attend a series of charity events which marks their first joint working trip since opting to quit working as senior royals in 2020. Their decision to live life on their own terms also prompted Harry and his wife to relocate to California.
In the same interview, the former “Suits” actress also touched on her teenage years and how attending high school in Los Angeles was far from fun considering she struggled to fit in with her other students. “I never had anyone to sit with at lunch,” she recalled.
“I was always a little bit of a loner and really shy and didn’t know where I fit in. So I thought, “oh I’ll just become the president of the multi cultural club and president of sophomore class and president of French club. That way I had meetings at lunch time and didn’t need to worry about who to sit with because I was so busy.”