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After a summer of relative peace, Meghan Markle formally re-opened her war with the British royal family this week—and indicated that a fresh bombardment will take place, each and every Wednesday, for the next 11 weeks.
The medium is her new “unfiltered” podcast on Spotify, Archetypes, which kicked off with an explosive, headline-grabbing claim that she was forced by unnamed royal operatives to continue working as if nothing had happened after a fire broke out in her son Archie’s bedroom.
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Although, as she said, Archie was not in the room when the “fire” happened, Meghan made it clear she was hugely alarmed and traumatized by the event, which occurred while the Sussexes were on a royal tour in Africa, and asked royal aides to cancel her immediate next engagements and tell people who were expecting her what had happened, but said that they refused.
If the royals were able to take some comfort in the scathing reviews Meghan’s podcast received in the British media (The Times compared it to being “locked in the relaxation room of a wellness spa with an unusually self-involved yoga instructor”), there is no indication that the wider public has lost its appetite for Meghan’s truth bombs yet; the podcast shot to No. 1 on Spotify’s global charts, including the U.K., knocking the regular incumbent of that spot, Joe Rogan, off his perch.
Meghan also dropped in that this week’s installment was just the first of 12 episodes to be released on a weekly basis, which means that every Wednesday, for the next 11 weeks, multiple reporters around the world will be tuning in to Spotify to hear what new outrage Meghan is going to be accusing the British royal family of perpetrating upon her.
The palace has been extremely cautious in its response to Meghan’s allegations. So far there has been no pushback by officials except an apparent briefing to the Telegraph: The paper claimed a source had told them that an announcement about the fire or canceling events would have overshadowed the Sussex’s official work.
But Meghan probably knows that nobody at the palace is going to start accusing her of being a liar, exaggerating things, or making things up—especially after a substantial part of her discussion with Serena Williams was devoted to how women are often labeled as hysterical or emotional when a man in the same situation might be called passionate or committed.
But make no mistake, this was undoubtedly a return to the front line of her battle with the royal establishment, with no attempt being made to hide the contempt in which she holds the British upper classes. Indeed, Meghan even went so far as to adopt a snooty British accent when she said she had not been criticized for being ambitious before she met her husband.
Duncan Larcombe, royal writer and former royal editor of British tabloid the Sun, told The Daily Beast: “This was the opening salvo in Meghan’s 12-week war. It has the potential to be even more damaging than the Oprah interview because it is Meghan, in her own words, on her own show, doing exactly what she wants, and the fact is she took the first opportunity to plunge the knife in. This will have come as a great relief to the executives on the other side of the glass at Spotify, who paid millions of dollars for her. It’s a huge hit, of course, but the fact that she was interviewing Serena Williams is almost completely irrelevant to the listening figures. Meghan has star power and this was all about Meghan being Meghan.”
The timing of the release of the show is also fascinating: Having waited almost two years since the initial deal with Spotify was inked, Meghan chose to release her debut episode one week before the 25th anniversary of Princess Diana‘s death.
Next week’s episode—featuring Mariah Carey—will go live on the anniversary date itself and it’s not hard to imagine Meghan devoting significant airtime to her husband's late mother (in stark contrast to the royal establishment; as the Royalist revealed this week, the queen and Prince Charles are unlikely to do anything at all to mark the anniversary). This would make sense; it is the stated purpose of Archetypes after all is to shine a light on “the labels that try to hold women back.”
The following episode on Sept. 7 will come amid a frenzy of focus on the couple as they visit the U.K., a trip which will see Meghan, on Sept. 5, be a keynote speaker at the One Young World 2022 Manchester Summit.
If the series finale drops on Nov. 10, there is every possibility of one of the later episodes coinciding with the publication of Harry’s book. It’s entirely possible to see a situation where one of the podcast episodes gives an extensive cross-platform plug to her husband’s literary output.
The very clear message out of Montecito is that Meghan and Harry not only have absolutely no intention of fading quietly into the background, but that they very much want to stay in the nose cone of public consciousness.
And if this means chucking regular headline-grabbing grenades at the royals to keep their names in the spotlight, so be it.
