A close friend of Meghan Markle says she 'means well' with her new podcast and has lauded her efforts to 'attack' important subjects.
Nacho Figueras, an Argentine polo player who works as an ambassador for Prince Harry 's charity Sentebale, heaped praise on the Duchess of Sussex following the launch of her long-awaited Archetypes podcast.
The debut episode featuring tennis superstar Serena Williams as a special guest was released on Spotify on Tuesday morning, and has since risen to the top of the service's streaming charts.
Topics discussed by the pair included female empowerment and ambition, which they both related to events from throughout their lives.
Speaking at a charity polo match in Aspen, Colorado, on Thursday, which was not attended by the duchess herself, her pal Figueras said: "She is always there, they have two very young children. She's also working very hard on her podcast that I want to congratulate her on.
"Sometimes the team has to divide to go on duty. That's the only reason she's not here, but she's always here in spirit."
"I think that she means well, she really wants to empower women and attack certain subjects that I think are important."
The polo player added that he wishes her the best in producing the podcast, and said he knew that she "cares about making the world a better place."
But not everyone has shared the Sussex family friend's rapturous response to the new series, which followed the signing of a multi-million pound deal with Spotify last year.
Responding to Meghan's claims in the episode that she was unduly criticised for having too much ambition when she first started dating Harry, royal commentator Kinsey Schofield suggested she had in fact “won the lottery” when she married the prince and is now using the podcast to “settle scores”.
Another rebuttal came from her half-sister Samantha Markle, who said her suggestion that she was first "empowered" by nuns at school ignored the fact that her dad Thomas had paid for her to attend the institution.
It comes after Meghan promised listeners she was going to “be myself and talk and be unfiltered” prompting fears in royal circles she may reveal more about life as she saw it in the monarchy.
The first episode of the podcast saw Meghan reveal how her and Prince Harry’s son Archie narrowly escaped a fire in his bedroom when he was meant to be sleeping, during the Sussex's tour of South Africa.
In the 57-minute-long podcast episode, the duchess tells of how Archie's then nanny, named only as Lauren, had taken the four and a half month old with her downstairs instead while she went to get a snack when, meanwhile, the heater in the nursery caught fire.
Meghan said: "We came back. And, of course, 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'."
The launch of Archetypes comes close to two years after Archewell Audio's partnership was Spotify was first announced.
Meghan and Harry signed a lucrative deal with the audio streaming giant to host and produce podcasts, estimated to be worth around £18 million in late 2020.
But until the Serena Williams episode the couple had only released one show so far - a holiday special featuring their son Archie and celebrity guests.
