Meghan Markle says she was not treated as a Black woman in America until she began dating Britain’s Prince Harry.
The Duchess of Sussex interviewed American pop singer Mariah Carey in the latest episode of her No. 1 ranked Spotify podcast “Archetypes.”
Archetypes shot to number 1 two days after it dropped, replacing “The Joe Rogan Experience” as the top podcast on Spotify in America on Thursday.
Meghan, 41, and Mariah, 53, spoke about their shared experiences as biracial women growing up in America.
“I didn’t fit in. I didn’t fit in,” said Mariah, who moved with her family over a dozen times as a child. She is pictured with rapper Jay Z in a photo dated January 27, 2018.
“You know, it would be more of the Black area of town or then you could be where my mom chose to live, were the more, the white neighborhoods. And I didn’t fit in anywhere at all,” Mariah said.
“Yeah, I understand that,” Meghan said, adding that she looked forward to welcoming Mariah on her podcast because they looked like each other.
“You were so formative for me. Representation matters so much,” Meghan said.
“But when you are a woman and you don’t see a woman who looks like you somewhere in a position of power or influence, or even just on the screen — because we know how influential media is — you came onto the scene, I was like ‘Oh, my gosh. Someone kind of looks like me.'”
Meghan said she was also inspired by biracial Oscar-winning actress Halle Berry, who couldn’t easily pass as white because her skin was dark.
“I had read this article about Halle Berry, and they were asking her how she felt being treated as a mixed-race woman in the world. And her response was her saying, ‘Well, your experience through the world is how people view you.’ So she said because she was darker in color, she was being treated as a Black woman, not as a mixed woman.”
“And I think for us, it’s very different because we’re light-skinned,” Meghan added. “You’re not treated as a Black woman. You’re not treated as a white woman. You sort of fit in between.”
Meghan enjoyed her privilege as a white woman in America, until she began dating Prince Harry.
“I mean, if there’s any time in my life that it’s been more focused on my race, it’s only once I started dating my husband. Then I started to understand what it was like to be treated like a Black woman. Because up until then, I had been treated like a mixed woman. And things really shifted.”
Listen to the podcast below.
