Being an ‘ugly duckling’, wanting a ‘perfect’ life: Everything Meghan Markle said in her third podcast episode

In conversation with actor, writer and director-producer Mindy Kaling, Meghan Markle got candid about her life and childhood in a new episode of her Spotify podcast series ‘Archetypes‘.
The third episode of the podcast dropped on Tuesday. Titled ‘The Stigma of the Singleton‘, the episode had the two well-established women smashing stereotypes and patriarchal beliefs that women are often forced to deal with.
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During the episode, the Duchess of Sussex, who is also a former actor, talked about the harsh criticism of her relationship with Prince Harry, especially with certain ‘sex’ comments that came her way, which seemed to undermine her achievements and make the royal wedding the one and only towering event of her life.

She told Mindy, “When I started dating my husband, we became engaged and everyone was just like, ‘Oh my god, you’re so lucky! He chose you!’” This was something that the duchess — who was a ‘commoner’ until she married into the British royal family — had to hear over and over. Naturally, it irked her.

“And, at a certain point, after you hear it a million times over, you are like, ‘Well, I chose him, too’,” the 41-year-old said. She added, “But thankfully, I have 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’.”

Meghan said that the word ‘lucky’ directed towards her, a woman, bothered her still. “It’s gendered and it’s archetyped and it’s stereotyped — ‘you’re so lucky’. And it just feeds into this idea that you are waiting for someone to tell you you’re good enough, as opposed to knowing that you are good enough on your own,” she said during the podcast.

Given the immense popularity that the UK royal family enjoys, when Prince Harry — the Duke of Sussex — and Meghan’s relationship became public many years ago, it led to a lot of scrutiny. The couple started to date in July 2016 and announced their engagement in November 2017. They had a dreamy wedding ceremony at St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle in May 2018; the following year, their son Archie Harrison was born. In 2021, they welcomed daughter Lilibet Diana.

Somewhere else in the podcast, the duchess also revealed that she “always wanted a cookie cutter-looking perfect life”, especially after her parents split when she was two or three years old. “For me, especially as my parents split up when I was only two or three years old, I always wanted this cookie cutter-looking perfect life.”

She added that she was a big fan of the Archie comics growing up, but that her son was not named after it! Instead, she would look at the comics “and they were just in this boring letterman jacket, and [she would] just romanticise that”. “It’s all part of the things that make you have this idea of what you want your life to be like when you grow up.”

Interestingly, the duchess had also received an ‘A’ grade in school for planning her “dream wedding”. “I remember every little thing about it. I wanted it to be at the Bel-Air Hotel. There was a swan lake and I wanted the cake to be from Hansen’s Bakery and the dress… Oh my goodness! The dress was strapless, pouffy and I’d seen it in a bridal magazine.”
Her actual wedding turned out to be much different, but it was a fairy tale nonetheless.

The duchess also said that growing up, she was an “ugly duckling”: “…maybe not conventional beauty… Now, maybe that would be seen as beautiful, but massive frizzy curly hair and a huge gap in my teeth. I was the smart one — forever and ever and ever and ever.
“I never had anyone to sit with at lunch. I was always a little bit of a loner and really shy,” Meghan said.
She continued, “And so, I just became… I was like, okay, well then I’ll become the president of the multicultural club and the president of sophomore class and the president of this and French club. And doing that, I had meetings at lunch time. So I didn’t have to worry about who I would sit with or what I would do because I was always so busy.”
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