Meghan was treated like a black woman for the first time in her life when she started dating the Duke of Sussex, she said in her latest Spotify podcast.
The Duchess of Sussex said her relationship with Prince Harry led to more focus on her race than before, during a conversation with pop superstar Mariah Carey.
When the American former actress married Prince Harry in 2018, she was the first mixed-race person to marry a senior British royal in centuries.
The duchess, who quit as a senior working royal two years ago, sparked a royal crisis with her Oprah interview in 2021 when she accused an unnamed member of the royal family of making a racist comment about her son Archie’s skin tone before he was born.
Her latest comments came the day after an interview with The Cut in which she suggested her children had been referred to by the “N-word” by the media.
Discussing the royal rota, the long-established press system that covers official events involving the monarchy, Meghan said: “Why would I give the very people that are calling my children the N-word a photo of my child before I can share it with the people that love my child?
“You tell me how that makes sense and then I’ll play that game.”
Meghan Duchess of Sussex through the years - in pictures
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Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, celebrating Queen Elizabeth II's platinum jubilee in June. Here 'The National' looks back through her life in pictures. Getty Images -
Meghan places flowers at a makeshift memorial outside Uvalde County Courthouse in Texas, in May, after the shooting of 19 children at Uvalde elementary school. AFP -
Meghan speaks during the Invictus Games opening ceremony at Zuiderpark in the Netherlands, in April. Getty Images -
Prince Harry and Meghan arrive at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum for the Salute to Freedom Gala in New York, in November 2021. AP -
Meghan appears on 'The Ellen DeGeneres Show' at the Warner Bros lot in Burbank, California, in November 2018. PA -
Prince Harry and Meghan appear on the cover of 'Time' magazine's 100 most influential people in the world edition, in September 2021. Reuters -
Prince Harry and Meghan speak during a Global Citizen Live event in New York, in September 2021. AFP -
Prince Harry and Meghan leave the UN headquarters in New York after a visit in September 2021. AFP -
Meghan and Prince Harry pause while getting a tour of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York, in September 2021. AP -
Prince Harry and Meghan are interviewed by Oprah Winfrey in March 2021. Reuters -
Meghan and Prince Harry shared this image on social media in February 2021 to announce they were expecting their second child. AFP -
Meghan and Prince Harry attend the Commonwealth Day Service in London, in March 2020. Getty Images -
Meghan and Prince Harry arrive to attend the Mountbatten Music Festival at the Royal Albert Hall, London, in March 2020. Getty Images -
Meghan holds her baby son Archie Mountbatten-Windsor during a royal tour of South Africa in September 2019. Getty Images -
Meghan and Prince Harry visit Auwal Mosque, the first and oldest mosque in South Africa, in the Bo Kaap district of Cape Town, in September 2019. Reuters -
Meghan meets Beyonce Knowles-Carter and Jay-Z as they attend the European Premiere of Disney's 'The Lion King' at Leicester Square in London, in July 2019. Getty Images -
Meghan and Prince Harry pose with their newborn son Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor at Windsor Castle in May 2019. Getty Images -
Meghan, joined by her mother Doria Ragland, shows her new son to Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip at Windsor Castle in May 2019. AP -
Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, and Meghan arrive to attend a Christmas Day church service on the Sandringham estate in December 2018. Getty Images -
Prince William, Catherine, Prince Harry and Meghan attend a service marking the centenary of the First World War armistice at Westminster Abbey, in November 2018. Getty Images -
Meghan poses in Sydney during a tour of Australia, Fiji, Tonga and New Zealand, in October 2018. Getty Images -
Meghan holds an umbrella for Prince Harry as he addresses the public during a Community Event in Dubbo, Australia, in October 2018. Getty Images -
Meghan helps to prepare food at an event to mark the launch of a cookbook with recipes from a group of women affected by the Grenfell Tower fire, at Kensington Palace, in September 2018. Getty Images -
Catherine and Meghan attend the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Championships in London in July 2018. Getty Images -
Queen Elizabeth, Meghan, Prince Harry, Prince William and Catherine watch the RAF 100th anniversary flypast from the balcony of Buckingham Palace in July 2018. Getty Images -
Meghan, Prince Harry and Queen Elizabeth at the Queen's Young Leaders Awards Ceremony at Buckingham Palace in June 2018. Getty Images -
Queen Elizabeth sits and laughs with Meghan during a ceremony to open the new Mersey Gateway Bridge in Cheshire, in June 2018. Getty Images -
Prince Harry and Meghan leave St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, on their wedding day in May 2018. Getty Images -
Meghan and Prince Harry wave as they leave Windsor Castle after their wedding to attend an evening reception at Frogmore House, in May 2018. Getty Images -
Meghan and her mother, Doria Ragland, arrive at Cliveden House Hotel in Berkshire to spend the night before her wedding to Prince Harry in May 2018. Getty Images -
Prince Harry and Meghan during a photo call to announce their engagement at The Sunken Gardens at Kensington Palace, in November 2017. Getty Images -
Meghan appears as character Rachel Zane in American TV show 'Suits', in 2011. Getty Images -
Meghan while working as a host on American quiz show 'Deal Or No Deal' in 2006. Getty Images
Chatting with singer Carey in the Archetypes episode on divas, they discussed their mixed-race heritage, with the duchess saying: “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.
“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.
“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.”
Carey added: “But that’s an interesting thing, a mixed woman, because I always thought it should be OK to say I’m mixed, like it should be OK to say that, but people want you to choose.”
“Yes,” Meghan replies.
Carey told Meghan about her childhood, saying: “I didn’t fit in, it would be more of the black area of town, or then you could be where my mum chose to live… the more white neighbourhoods and I didn’t fit in anywhere at all.”
“Yeah. I understand that,” Meghan replies.
Meghan Markle spotted in London ahead of queen's jubilee celebrations - video
The pair also compared stories about their hair when they were younger.
“Because my hair is so curly and it’s so, so thick, I just remember as a child – because my mum’s black – and so my grandma Jeanette would do my hair, she’d go, ‘Just hold on to the sink’," Meghan said.
“And I would grip my little hands on both sides – so you would have no luxury of being tender-headed because she would take the brush and just go whoosh, whoosh.”
After a discussion by feminist studies academic Dr Mashinka Firunts Hakopian about divas, Meghan said: “It’s interesting, isn’t it? This idea of power, of a person acquiring power and then needing to be taken down, and how that corresponds to the usage of the word.”
In her controversial interview with The Cut, Meghan said she had been told there was the same jubilation in South Africa when she married Prince Harry as there was when Nelson Mandela was freed from prison.
She added that “just by existing” she and Prince Harry were “upsetting the dynamic of the hierarchy” before they stepped down as senior working royals.
The duchess also said she had made an “active effort” to forgive the royal family, “especially knowing that I can say anything”, and saying: “I’ve never had to sign anything that restricts me from talking”.
