After a two-year wait, the Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, has finally released the first episode of her lucrative podcast.
As expected, it has received mixed reviews.
The Americans and the Brits had very different perspectives on the chat the 41-year-old mother of two delivered on Wednesday after she sat down with tennis legend and ‘‘dear, dear friend’’ Serena Williams.
As Forbes reported earlier this year, California-based Meghan and husband Prince Harry’s $US25 million ($36 million) deal with Spotify ‘‘yielded no content for the streaming platform in 2021’’.
That prompted the service to take matters into ‘‘its own hands” and start ‘‘facilitating productions for the pair’’.
It has done just that with the debut of Spotify and Archewell Audio’s [one of their 11 Delaware-based companies] highly anticipated, original podcast series Archetypes.
So does it deliver? Does it give us an intimate insight into Meghan’s life, with children, Archie, 4, and Lilibet, 1, and Harry in their $US15 million gated Montecito community?
There are vague references to Meghan’s past allegations of being ostracised, sidelined and controlled by the royal family – ultimately the 12-part series will be interpreted as ‘‘fresh blows’’ to the British monarchy.
With Williams, Meghan talks about ambition and stereotypes. What it really means being a woman in today’s society, what’s holding back women and the journey of reclaiming identity.
According to the official Spotify synopsis, Meghan delves into ‘‘how we got here’’. With the help of experts and historians, she ‘‘unearths the origin of words such as ‘diva’, ‘slut’, ‘the B word’, ‘hysterical’, and many more, and asks: Can we change this?’’
Williams also shares anecdotes – becoming a mother, expanding her family and quitting elite tennis.
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‘Tone deaf’ and ‘witty, daring’: Mixed reactions
Britain’s Times, was hardly flattering, describing Wednesday’s release as an ‘‘almost entirely preposterous new podcast’’.
‘‘[It] is a tastefully soundtracked parade of banalities, absurdities and self-aggrandising Californian platitudes,’’ wrote reviewer James Marriott.
‘‘The effect of all the tinkly music and vapid conversation is to make you feel you’ve been locked in the relaxation room of a wellness spa with an unusually self-involved yoga instructor.
‘‘Even those sympathetic to Meghan’s plight (and I had once thought I might be one of those people) will find that the full hour of an episode of Archetypes will put them in an unusually grumpy mood.’’
The Talk UK hosts agreed it was ‘‘appalling, tragic and tone deaf’’, while some on social media described it as a ‘‘yawn’’, and a ‘‘boring whingefest’’.
But Meghan’s fans loved it, describing the first episode as ‘‘witty, daring and captivating’’, and gushing over the duchess’s ‘‘beautiful, soothing voice’’.
The Daily Mirror was also glowing, labelling Meghan a genius for delivering a ‘‘big FU to her haters, but in a very classy and clever way’’.
A quick search of the top 100 Spotify podcasts in the US showed Archetypes was yet to make the list.
The Joe Rogan Experience remains on top, while The Ben Foster sports podcast held No.1 in Britain.
Meghan kicks off with an old chestnut
Keeping in mind the episode is called The Misconception of Ambition with Serena Williams, and we do get to hear a lot from her, there remains room for some of Meghan’s tried and true chestnuts.
Harry drops by – apparently totally unexpectedly – as she and Williams settle in for their earnest girl chat.
Meghan starts by repeating an anecdote about her 11-year-old self writing to multinational consumer company Procter & Gamble about its commercial for Ivory dishwashing liquid.
‘‘The gloves are coming off! Women are fighting greasy pots and pans with Ivory Clear,’’ are the words Meghan replays in the podcast.
They stirred an uproar in her grade six classroom.
Meghan wanted the word ‘women‘ swapped with ‘people’: ‘‘I went on what you might call a ‘letter-writing campaign’, which included sealed envelopes to the company and to former first lady Hillary Clinton.’’
Three months later, a new version of the ad appeared on TVs across the US, with the word ‘women’ changed to ‘people’.
‘‘This experience was also something bigger: An awakening. To the millions of ways – big and small – that our society tries to box women in.’’
In his unauthorised, controversial biography Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the war between the Windsors, British author Tom Bower noted that Meghan was ‘‘furious’’ this childhood battle was omitted from her 2017 Vanity Fair cover.
The magazine’s fact-checkers reportedly couldn’t verify her claims she had influenced the change, and Bower alleged her so-called campaign was ‘‘fictitious, invented by an adoring father’’.
Moving on.
Meghan talks about being criticised for being ambitious when she was dating Harry, and says ambition has become a “dirty, dirty word when it comes to women”.
“I don’t remember ever personally feeling the negative connotation behind the word ‘ambitious’ until I started dating my now husband,’’ she said.
“Since I’ve felt the negativity behind it, it’s really hard to un-feel it. I can’t un-see it, either, in the millions of girls and women who make themselves smaller – so much smaller – on a regular basis.’’
‘Stop!’ – Serena shocked about nursery fire
Meghan’s one big revelation comes from her 2019 royal tour of South Africa with Harry.
She reveals that on the first day of the tour, a heater in baby Archie’s nursery caught fire. Archie was meant to be sleeping in the room, but had been taken downstairs by his nanny.
‘‘Oh my God, I can’t believe we haven’t talked about this,’’ she said.
The duchess recounts her distress as she learned of the near-miss soon after delivering a speech in Cape Town in 2019.
She rushed back to see Archie, then just four months old, but had to leave him again for another official engagement.
“There was this moment where I’m standing on a tree stump and I’m giving this speech to women and girls, and we finish the engagement, we get in the car and they say, ‘There’s been a fire at the residence’. What? ‘There’s been a fire in the baby’s room’,” she said.
“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 duchess stresses the need for more understanding of the “human moments behind the scenes”.
Ambition, evolution, the future with the royal family
Meghan and Serena go on to share stories about balancing their ambition with motherhood, and discuss their struggles as new mothers with high-profile careers.
They talk about ‘‘being in control’’ of their own narratives, instead of being seen through the ‘‘lens’’ that is the media.
‘‘It doesn’t mean that stops being a part of you, and it doesn’t mean that you as a person stop. No, you evolve into something else and continue the evolution which you and I both love so much, which is being a mom,’’ Meghan said.
Next week’s Archetypes episode features a conversation with Mariah Carey
