Meghan Markle says black women are labelled ‘angry’ in latest Archetypes podcast 

Meghan Markle has said ‘telling people what you need does not make you demanding’ as she claimed black women are labelled ‘angry’ in her latest Archetypes podcast on Spotify. 

The Duchess of Sussex said she often found herself ‘cowering and tiptoeing into a room’ due to the feeling that she could not say what she wanted without being perceived negatively. 

‘The thing I find the most embarrassing is when you’re saying a sentence and the intonation goes up – like it’s a question. And you’re like, ”oh my God, stop stop, like whispering and tiptoeing around it”’, she says. 

‘Just say what it is that you need. You’re allowed to set a boundary. You’re allowed to be clear, does not make you demanding. It does not make you difficult, it makes you clear.’ 

Meghan added that she felt ‘a rising tide lifts all ships’ and that ‘we’re all going to succeed to let’s make sure it’s really great’. 

The 41-year-old has been dogged by allegations of bullying her staff at Kensington Palace, with ‘broken’ royal aides telling of feeling humiliated, ‘sick’, ‘terrified’, left ‘shaking’ with fear and being reduced to tears.

The Duchess is said to have berated staff repeatedly and subjected them to repeated phone calls. The royal has always strenuously denied any claims of bullying. 

In ‘upending the angry black women myth’, the Meghan chats to comedians Issa Rae and Ziwe to explore the stereotypes around ‘women of colour’. 

Among the episode’s other revelations:  

• Meghan suggests the ‘archetype’ of the ‘angry black woman’ who is ‘overly emotional’ goes back to the time of slavery; 
• Says the trope has influenced her own behaviour, and she ‘makes a choice’ to be as ‘grounded as possible’ because of things that are ‘going to be said, no matter what’;
• Reveals she watched the nomination hearings for Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first black Supreme Court judge, and found them ‘painful and gripping’; 
• Says when she was casting for black women roles as an actress the characters always had an ‘edge or an attitude’; 
• Reveals she’s had a genealogy test which identified her has 43 per cent Nigerian; 

On her new podcast today, the Duchess of Sussex said she often found herself ‘cowering and tiptoeing into a room’ due to the feeling that she could not say what she wanted without being perceived negatively

Meghan has been dogged by allegations of bullying her staff at Kensington Palace, with ‘broken’ royal aides telling of feeling humiliated, ‘sick’, ‘terrified’, left ‘shaking’ with fear and being reduced to tears. She’s always denied any claims of bullying

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In ‘upending the angry black women myth’, the Duchess of Sussex chats to comedians Issa Rae (left) and Ziwe (right) to explore the stereotypes around ‘women of colour’.