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Meghan Markle and Mariah Carey spoke about the “duality of diva” on the latest episode of Archetypes. The Grammy winner was a guest on the Duchess of Sussex’s Spotify podcast. “If anyone could help me see the diva in a new light... it would be the woman who wears this word daily – proudly, unabashedly,” Meghan said of Mariah.
During their conversation on the second episode, which dropped on Aug. 30, Meghan told her guest, “I think that’s really important for people to remember that there might be this persona. And yes, the diva thing we can play into. I mean, it’s not something that I connect to...” Mariah interrupted saying, “You give us diva moments sometimes, Meghan.”
“What kind of diva moments do I give you?” Meghan asked, to which Mariah said, “Don’t act like you-”
“Do you see me right now?” Meghan replied. Mariah said: “It’s also the visual. It’s the visual. A lot of it is the visual.”
Meghan told Mariah, “See that’s the thing, I associate it differently.”
The “We Belong Together” singer later clarified that she “was playing with” Meghan when she made the comment. Following their conversation, the Duchess addressed “the moment.”
“It was all going swimmingly, I mean really well, until that moment happened, which I don’t know about you, but it stopped me in my tracks when she called me a diva. You couldn’t see me, obviously, but I, I started to sweat a little bit. I started squirming in my chair in this quiet revolt, like, ‘Wait, wait, no, what? How? But? How could you? That’s not true,’” she said. “‘Why would you say that?’ My mind genuinely was just spinning with what nonsense she must have read or clicked on to make her say that.”
Meghan continued, “I just kept thinking, in that moment, was my girl crush coming to a quick demise? Does she actually not see me? So she must have felt my nervous laughter, and you all would’ve heard it too. And she jumped right in to make sure I was crystal clear. When she said diva, she was talking about the way that I dress, the posture, the clothing, the quote unquote, fabulousness as she sees it. She meant diva as a compliment. But I heard it as a dig. I heard it as the word diva, as I think of it. But, in that moment, as she explained to me, she meant it as chic, as aspirational. And how one very charged word can mean something different for each of us, it’s mind blowing to me. And it actually made me realize that in these episodes, as I’ve opened the door for conversation surrounding the archetypes that try to hold us back, what I hadn’t considered was that for some, reclaiming the words is what they feel will propel us forward.”
Meghan’s podcast premiered last week with Serena Williams as the first guest. Archetypes, which is the first podcast series as part of Spotify and Archewell Audio’s multi-year partnership, is “about the labels and tropes that try to hold women back.” Next week’s episode will feature Mindy Kaling.