How Meghan Markle Responded When She Was Told She’s Withstood ‘an Unfathomable Amount of Sh*t’ as a Royal

It’s worth noting generally that while Meghan was more forthcoming discussing her own experience as a royal on the podcast’s first episode (which reportedly “disappointed” the royal family), Meghan has since scaled back and really sticks to her role as an interviewer, keeping her conversations focused on her guests.

This latest episode was no exception, but Jamil did end up sharing a little about Meghan for her.

Meghan spoke with Jamil about the activism Jamil has done in body positivity, mental health, and more along with the toll of being so vocal on the internet. Meghan asked Jamil about being “attacked for speaking up on important issues when she wasn’t deemed to be the right person to be speaking up.”

Jamil thoughtfully addressed the topic, saying she has made “mistakes” in the past speaking up in areas she was not enough of an expert on, but said “I have learned to pull myself back in and just go, What do you actually know what you’re talking about? Why don’t we just start there? And I’m not saying anyone has to be perfect in their knowledge or understanding of something before they try and scrap in and fight. But if you’re going to, if your voice is going to be elevated above others, people who are more experienced than you, then you better be ready.”

Meghan went on to ask what Jamil’s partner, James Blake, thinks of what she’s doing. That’s when Jamil brought up Prince Harry and Meghan’s own experience navigating how her activism and general existence became the target of some British tabloids.

Jamil first addressed her own experience. “I mean, he just likes that I am completely myself,” she said. “I think he really enjoys the fact that I’m not repressed in any way, you know, and therefore, I don’t have anywhere that I need to kind of like let off that steam or hold in any toxicity. I get everything off my chest, to you know mixed results. He’s incredibly supportive of me. And he’s been a big encourager of me to learn how to, you know, fight back and speak my mind and understand my worth. And he’s just a great ally. He’s just a great source of strength and comfort and someone who can take my phone away cause he’s six foot seven. I can’t reach it when he’s holding it up. You know, if I need my phone to be taken away, he’s there to…. you know, he understands me, and he’s just an incredible human, an incredible friend. And I don’t think I could have withstood all of this without him.”

Then she turned it ack bto Meghan and Harry: “And I know you have a very similar dynamic with Harry,” she continued. “Actually, when the four of us met that one time, yeah, it was a, it was a really sweet dynamic, with two very like sort of similar relationships. And it was very nice for me to see that you have that in your home. Yes. Because you need it. Because it’s just it’s an unfathomable amount of shit that you take, Meghan. And I can’t believe it. And I fought back on your behalf years before I’d ever met you, because I was so outraged by a so outraged with the twisting of this very normal, very kind, very civilized woman. That demonization just shows how afraid they are of you. And I’m sure maybe you can’t keep this in or whatever, but the treatment of you and I’m so sorry you’ve had to withstand it. It has re-highlighted for us the intense and unkindness and bigotry and misogyny of our media and I think and I hope and I feel faith that the tides are changing because so many of us are fighting back.”

Meghan was polite in her response—and then asked another question to keep the interview’s focus on Jamil. “Well, thank you for fighting back,” Meghan said. “When all of that criticism can feel really attacking or really uncomfortable or scary, is there ever that moment where you go, ‘No. I just can’t put myself in this position anymore. It’s not. It’s not good for me, even if it’s good for the greater good’?”

While Meghan chose not to take the opportunity to talk more about her life there, she has previously spoken a little before about her experience. To The Cut, she discussed how tough it was grappling with the royals’ system for releasing family photos.

“There’s literally a structure by which if you want to release photos of your child, as a member of the family, you first have to give them to the Royal Rota [the U.K. media pool],” she said, adding they would publish the photos before the royals sometimes and give photos to tabloids that routinely attack her and Harry, which didn’t feel right.

“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?” Meghan said. “You tell me how that makes sense and then I’ll play that game.”

She went on to add later that while she doesn’t read press, she has really embraced the opportunity after stepping back from her senior royal family role to actually use her own voice without restriction. “When the media has shaped the story around you, it’s really nice to be able to tell your own story,” she said.

Meghan said later there’s no NDA keeping her from talking more frankly about her time as a duchess; she has just decided to hold back for now. “I can talk about my whole experience and make a choice not to,” she said, noting she hasn’t yet because she’s “still healing.”