Fans of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry have swooned over the couple's love story - ever since the pair first met on a blind date organised by pals. Rumours the actress and royal were dating emerged in October 2016, after the pair first met that summer after being introduced by pal Violet von Westenholz.
While they kept public appearances to a minimum at the beginning, Meghan joined Prince Harry in the front row at the Invictus Games, and they announced their engagement two months later. Fast forward to May 19 2018, the couple wed in St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle, with an estimated 1.9 billion people tuning in worldwide to watch.
Now in the latest episode of her podcast Archetypes, the Duchess of Sussex has shared the response she received when their relationship went public.
Speaking to Mindy Kaling, Meghan shared her experience of when she became engaged to Prince Harry.
She recalled: "Everyone was just like 'Oh my God, you're so lucky, he chose you. At a certain point after you hear it a million times over you're like 'well I chose him too'
"Thankfully I have a partner who was countering that narrative for me and going 'they've got it all wrong, I'm the lucky one' because you chose me, but it is gendered and it's archetype and it's stereotyped that 'you're so lucky.'
"It just feeds into this idea that you're waiting for someone to tell you that you're good enough, as opposed to knowing that you're good enough on your own."
The Duchess of Cambridge had a similar response when one of her friends told her she was lucky after she started dating Prince William while they were attending university.
According to Claudia Joseph, author of Kate Middleton: Princess in Waiting, Smiling, Kate simply replied: "He's lucky to have me."
Meghan spoke with actress Mindy Kaling about the stereotypes that still surround being a single, unmarried woman.
Introducing Kaling, she added: "Mindy and I are talking about how her decision to have children as a single, unmarried woman showed her the importance of forging your own path.”
Discussing marriage generally, Meghan asked: “What was and what is so threatening about women who live outside of marriage?”
She added: “The associations our society makes around unmarried women feels so outdated and I wanted to give them a refresh.”
