Meghan Markle has faced backlash from Nelson Mandela's grandson after she compared herself to the South African freedom fighter. In her recent bombshell interview with American magazine The Cut, the Duchess of Sussex said she had been likened to the anti-apartheid activist by South Africans, Birmingham Live reports.
She told the interviewer that while attending the premiere of The Lion King in London in 2019, one of the South African cast members told her: “He said, ‘I just need you to know: When you married into this family, we rejoiced in the streets the same we did when Mandela was freed from prison.’ ”
However, the former President's grandson Chief Nkosi Zwelivelile Mandela has slammed the remark. According to the MailOnline, he said: "Madiba's celebration was based on overcoming 350 years of colonialism with 60 years of a brutal apartheid regime in South Africa. So It cannot be equated to as the same."
Mandela, revered worldwide as a man of peace and forgiveness, was freed from prison in 1990 after 27 years and went on to become president of his beloved South Africa. Meghan said the comparison between Mandela and her marrying into the royal family was made at the 2019 premiere of The Lion King in London where she and Harry met Beyonce and Jay-Z.
Piers Morgan also slammed the quote. He said: “Even by Markle standards, this is a revoltingly self- aggrandising, disingenuous and hypocritical load of royal-bashing tosh.
"The Mandela anecdote alone had me gagging. How dare she use her title to keep trashing the institution that gave it to her? Shameless and shameful.”
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