Meghan Markle Shares How Prince Harry Inspired the Final Episode of Her Archetypes Podcast

For the final episode of her podcast, Meghan Markle was inspired by her husband Prince Harry to include more men’s voices.

In the final installment of this season of Archetypes, the Duchess of Sussex invited three men, Andy Cohen, Trevor Noah, and Judd Apatow, onto her show for the first time to discuss some of the stereotypes and gender roles that hold women back. An idea which, she revealed, came from her husband. “Now, if you’ve been listening to the past 11 episodes, you may have noticed that you haven’t heard many men’s voices. In fact, until now, outside a pop-in from my husband in the first episode, this show has featured exclusively women’s voices,” Meghan said, referring to when Harry dropped by briefly to say hello to her first guest Serena Williams. “And that’s by design. It was important to us that women have a space to share their authentic and complicated, complex and dynamic experiences. To be heard and to be understood.”

The royal continued, “But through that process, it also occurred to me—and truth be told, at the suggestion of my husband—that if we really want to shift how we think about gender and the limiting labels that we separate people into, then we have to broaden the conversation…and we have to actively include men in that conversation and certainly in that effort.” To that end, the duchess “enlisted some very thoughtful men in the effort. Men who’ve been behind some of the most successful movies and TV shows, but also, who are part of cultural conversation in such an impactful way through their roles in media, and also, for some of them, their roles as husbands and dads.”

During her conversation with Noah, Meghan spoke about the inspiration behind her children’s book The Bench, based on Harry’s relationship with their son Archie. “I wrote a children’s book that came out a year ago, or a couple of years ago, and is basically about this softer side of masculinity,” she explained. “And how I’ve seen my husband as a dad and the example of that. That’s the person that the young boy can look to and say, ‘Oh, this is what it means to be a man. This is the example of that. That’s the person that I can go to when I’m crying and that’s the person that will sit with me. That’s the person that can put the Band-Aid on my knee.’ And that that level of being nurtured can come from a male figure in your life just as much as it can from a female figure, but also for those male figures that it feels really good. To be able to provide that and to be able to show that part of your personality, that it doesn’t make you less of a man in doing so.”

At the end of the episode, the Duchess also took stock of everything she’s learned and all the great guests she’s spoken to over the course of this 12-episode series. “I don’t know what I’d been expecting, but what’s come out of it for me has been illuminating, and also ironic. Because while this format is only audio and each week I use my voice, you can hear my thoughts without any visual, I feel seen,” she shared. “I had never considered that in using my voice, that I would feel seen. But I do. And so much of the feedback throughout the season from women is that they feel seen as well. As we heard today, that men see our experience differently now, too. They see us. They see us more clearly.”

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