The Duchess of Sussex has said she romanticised the Archie comic books as a child because she dreamed of a “cookie cutter-looking perfect life”, confessing she had a thing for redheads.
Meghan went on to marry the Duke of Sussex who has red hair, just like the series’ main character, all-American teenager Archie Andrews.
But ex-actress Meghan said she did not name her son Archie, now three, after the popular tales.
Meghan, in conversation with Mindy Kaling on the duchess’s Archetypes podcast, said the comics were her favourite childhood books.
She described how she used to read them because she was “alone so much as a child” and was a “latchkey kid”.
Meghan said she wondered “Am I going to get the guy one day?” adding that she was “the smart one, not the pretty one”.
The duchess said: “I was alone so much as a child, right, and also a latchkey kid, and I think I read a lot of Archie comic books ironically.
“My son is not named after Archie comic books, but I loved them. I collected them.”
She added: “I think for me, especially, my parents split up when I was around two, three years old, and I always wanted this sort of cookie cutter-looking perfect life and you looked at that and there’s like a boy in a letterman jacket.
“I romanticised 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 grew up.
“I always thought I’m way more Betty than Veronica and am I going to get the guy one day? And I was the smart one, not the pretty one. All this stuff was wrapped up in reading Archie comic books and just, I think, was aspirational in some ways.”
Kaling said that the comics “never got too sexy”, telling Meghan: “Well, you like redheads.”
Meghan laughed and said: “I do and I like the name Archie,” describing it as all being “full circle”.
Archie and friends Jughead Jones, Betty Cooper and Veronica Lodge have been updated for a modern audience with Riverdale, a Netflix American teenage drama series.
Kaling said she liked the Harriet The Spy books.
