Following the Queen’s passing and the designated period of mourning, the Duchess of Sussex took a four-week break from her Spotify podcast Archetypes.
In honor of the late monarch and to allow Meghan to concentrate on helping her husband, Prince Harry, during the couple’s extended stay in the UK, the podcast, which has been releasing new episodes every Tuesday since it first began in mid-August 2022, was temporarily put on hold for the majority of September.
The first episode since Tuesday, September 6, featured Meghan discussing the “Dragon Lady” stereotype and additional ways society restricts and defines Asian women with comedian Margaret Cho, sociologist Nancy Wang Yuen, and journalist Lisa Ling.
The Duchess spoke candidly about her childhood in Los Angeles at the beginning of the episode, describing it as “full of culture that you could see, feel, hear, and taste on a daily basis.”
She mentioned visiting a Korean spa with her mother when she was a teen and her “adolescent embarrassment” of having to undress in front of other women, as is the custom in Korean spas, saying that she had a “real love” of learning about other cultures.
“For a girl going through puberty, entering a room with women who range in age from nine to possibly 90, all waiting to get a body scrub on one of these tables that are all lined up in a row, is very humiliating. I only desired a bathing suit.”
She said that after she got over her teenage embarrassment, she and her mother would go upstairs, sit in a room, and eat a steaming bowl of the tastiest noodles.
Serena Williams, Mariah Carey, and Mindy Kaling have all previously appeared as guests on the podcast. The Duchess has private discussions about gender-specific labels and stereotypes throughout each episode.
Archetypes is a podcast where “we investigate, dissect, and subvert the labels that try to hold women back,” according to the show’s synopsis.
