Meghan Markle is getting candid with Mariah Carey.
The 41-year-old Duchess of Sussex hosted the 53-year-old music icon for the second episode of her Archetypes podcast. During the interview, titled “The Duality Of Diva,” the duo addressed the negative perception of the term “diva” and opened up about being biracial.
Meghan told Mariah at the beginning of the episode how much Mariah inspired her growing up, particularly because she could relate so much to the super star:
“You were so formative for me. Representation matters so much. But when you are a woman and you don’t see a woman who looks like you somewhere in a position of power or influence, or even just on the screen — because we know how influential media is — you came onto the scene, I was like ‘Oh, my gosh. Someone kind of looks like me.’
I had read this article about Halle Berry and they were asking her how she felt being treated as a mixed-race woman in the world. And her response was her saying, ‘Well, your experience through the world is how people view you.’ So she said because she was darker in color, she was being treated as a Black woman, not as a mixed woman.”
She went on to share her insights on why it was different for her and Mariah:
“I think for us, it’s very different because we’re light-skinned. You’re not treated as a Black woman. You’re not treated as a white woman. You sort of fit in between.”
Meghan then revealed that she experienced being treated “like a Black woman” when she began to date Prince Harry:
“I mean, if there’s any time in my life that it’s been more focused on my race, it’s only once I started dating my husband [Prince Harry].
Then I started to understand what it was like to be treated like a Black woman. Because up until then, I had been treated like a mixed woman. And things really shifted.”
