MEGHAN Markle has relived the horror moment a FIRE broke out in son Archie’s nursery while the family were on tour in South Africa.
The long-awaited first episode of Meghan’s Spotify podcast Archetypes dropped today.
Meghan Markle has revealed her relived the horror moment a fire broke out in son Archie’s nursery
Prince Harry and Meghan held Archie as they met with Archbishop Desmond Tutu and his wife Leah in Cape Town during their South Africa tour
In it, the Duchess of Sussex tells her pal Serena Williams about the horror moment she was told Archie’s nursery had caught ablaze in 2019.
Meghan and Harry were visiting the South African township of Nyaga when officials told Meghan “there was a fire in the baby’s room”.
The couple raced home to find their then-nanny – named only as Lauren – in tears.
Meghan said: “The moment we landed, we had to drop [Archie]
off at this housing unit that they had 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…
“We finish the engagement, we get in the car and they say ‘there’s been a fire at the residence. There’s been a fire in the baby’s room’.
She adds: “We get back, and our amazing nanny Lauren is in floods of tears.
“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 continues: “As a mother, you go, Oh, my God, what?
“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.”
In the 57 minute-long show, Meghan and Serena also discuss “the double standard women face when they are labelled ‘ambitious'”, the description reads.
The “ground-breaking” 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.”
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.”
Today’s podcast comes almost two years after Harry and Meghan signed an £18million podcast project with audio giant Spotify.
In January, Spotify took the project “into its own hands” by hiring a host of in-house producers to help deliver content.
Spotify said it was looking forward to a “full-scale” launch of shows in 2021 – but nothing appeared.
Before this episode, Harry and Meghan’s only podcast effort was a 35-minute “holiday special” in December 2020, featuring celebrity pals such as Elton John and James Corden.
Fans had been questioning when their so-called “full-scale launch” of episodes would be coming.
The Duchess of Sussex chats with her pal Serena Williams in the first episode titled ‘The Misconception of Ambition’
The long-awaited first episode of Meghan Markle’s Spotify podcast has dropped
