REVEALING:
I am Happy My DNA Genealogy showed I am 43 percent Nigerian from West Africa-MEGHAN Markle, DUCHESS of SUSSEX on podcast
… confirms she feels good about her root and confidence of black heritage identity
*’Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s Archewell Foundation made unspecified donation to Save the Children orphanage in Nigeria as team deliver life-saving supplies to affected flood families’
*Thumbs down hurty-tone conversation: “I find it most embarrassing when you’re saying a sentence and the intonation goes up. That’s why I keep cowering and tiptoeing into a room. I don’t like it when black women are being stereotyped as angry”
*BY GEORGE ELIJAH OTUMU/AMERICAN Senior Investigative Editor
The DUCHESS OF SUSSEX, MEGHAN MARKLE in her recent Archetypes podcast revealed that her D.N.A genealogy has confirmed that she is 43 percent Nigerian from West Africa and that the discovery made her feel good about her root, confidence of her black heritage identity.
Markle stated that herself and husband, Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex donated an unspecified amount to charities in Nigeria to ‘help provide relief following devastating flooding’- after the Duchess revealed she is 43% Nigerian on latest Archetypes podcast.
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry made a donation to charities working in Nigeria after the Duchess announced she is 43 per cent Nigerian on her latest Archetypes podcast, it has been revealed.
In a press release which accompanied the episode, a Spotify representative confirmed that the couple’s Archewell Foundation made donations to ‘Save the Children’ and Unicef.
The spokesperson said the unspecified donations to the charities would ‘help provide relief following devastating floods wreaking havoc in Nigeria.’
Floods in the country, blamed by the government on heavy rain and a water release from a dam in neighbouring Cameroon, have killed more than 600 people, displaced around 1.4 million and damaged or destroyed 440,000 hectares of farmland across Nigeria.
Meanwhile ‘Save the Children Nigeria’ tweeted: ‘More than 1.5 million children are at risk after devastating flooding in Nigeria.
‘Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s Archewell Foundation has donated to Save the Children in Nigeria as our teams deliver life-saving supplies to affected families.’
The couple have previously given their support to ‘Save The Children’, with Meghan sharing a video alongside their son Archie for the charity’s Save with Stories campaign in 2020.
During the episode which was titled ‘Upending The Angry Black Women Myth’, the Duchess said she is ‘going to start to dig deeper into all this’ during her discussion with comedians Issa Rae and Ziwe Fumudoh on her new podcast installment.
Elsewhere in the episode released yesterday on Spotify, mother-of-two Meghan admitted she is ‘particular’ but insisted ‘telling people what you need does not make you demanding’ as she claimed black women are stereotyped as ‘angry’.
Speaking to Nigerian-American comedian Ziwe, Meghan explained: “I just had my genealogy done a couple years ago… (I’m) 43 per cent Nigerian.’
She added: ‘I’m going to start to dig deeper into all this because anybody that I’ve told, especially Nigerian women, are like “What!”‘
‘This is huge for our community,’ a shocked Ziwe, 30, replied. ‘No, honestly, you do look like a Nigerian, you look like my Aunt Uzo. So this is great.’
Meanwhile, discussing her behavior in work situations, the Duchess spoke of her frustration at ‘cowering and tiptoeing into a room’ due to the fear she could be perceived negatively.
‘I’m particular, I think a high tide raises all ships, we’re all going to succeed so let’s make sure it’s really great because it’s a shared success for everybody,’ she said.
‘But I also find myself cowering and tiptoeing into a room and – the thing I find most embarrassing – 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. Just say what it is that you need. You’re allowed to set a boundary. You’re allowed to be clear, it doesn’t make you demanding. It doesn’t make you difficult, it makes you clear.’
The 41-year-old has previously been branded ‘Duchess Difficult’ following claims about her ‘dictatorial’ behaviour and 5am emails – which allegedly prompted her aide Samantha Cohen to quit.
Other ‘broken’ royal aides told of being reduced to tears by bullying and temper tantrums. Meghan has always strenuously denied any claims of bullying.
Early in the episode, comedian Ziwe described how her ‘brash and rude’ onscreen persona was ‘in direct opposition to what a woman should be publicly, according to sexism’.
In a monologue responding to her comments, Meghan said she was ‘so right’ and that ‘when looked at through the lens of black women’ her point of view was ‘pretty inspiring’.
Introducing the next segment – a conversation with the actress Issa Rae – Meghan said it was time to ‘try on what it feels like when we’re allowed to just live our truths’… ‘to be direct without being called angry, to exist on our own terms, to just be, to just be human’.
After asking Rae if she wants a coffee, Meghan reveals she ‘only recently started drinking coffee again’ after ‘not even thinking about it’ when she was in the UK.
‘When I was on set, of course it was like Nespresso all day, every day. I didn’t really drink it in the UK and didn’t think about it.’
Asked why she started drinking it again in the UK, Meghan said: ‘It’s a great question, it’s a great question but like I guess because life started to come back and so people started to come when guests come or meetings or and they’re like oh would you like coffee?’
The duchess later gave another insight into her own acting appointment, and how when she used to go through casting lists of black characters ‘they always had to have an edge or an attitude’.
One example of alleged racism against black women discussed on the podcast was the treatment of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson during her Senate judiciary committee hearings.
Jackson, the first black woman to serve on the Supreme Court, was quizzed on her views on issues like critical race theory and whether they would interfere with her decision making.
Meghan said: ‘I remember watching these hearings in the summer of 2022. They were gripping and painful. Then Judge Jackson remained poised and composed no matter what was happening for her beneath the surface, which I cannot begin to imagine.’
At the end of the podcast the royal paused to hear a rendition of the poem ‘I Rise’ by Maya Angelou.
Meghan’s latest podcast comes as she faces backlash for saying Deal or No Deal ‘reduced her to a bimbo.’
The Duchess made the comments while speaking on her podcast with Paris Hilton. The episode, called Breaking Down the Bimbo, heard Meghan say she wants her daughter Lilibet to be valued first for her mind, rather than ‘beauty not brains’ as she was on the TV game show.
‘I ended up quitting the show. I was so much more than what was being objectified on the stage. I didn’t like feeling forced to be all looks. And little substance,’ the Duchess said of her 34-episode stint on the show.
Actress and chat show host Whoopi Goldberg said Meghan’s remarks were naïve. ‘That’s TV, baby. But what did you think you were going to do? You know that’s what the show was,’ she said. ‘When you’re a performer, you take the gig.’
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