Friday, March 29, 2024

Meghan Markle and Mariah Carey Unpack Their Biracial Experience and the Definition of ‘Diva’ | LISTEN

podcast conversation
Meghan Markle / Mariah Carey

*Meghan Markle welcomed Mariah Carey to her Archetypes podcast Tuesday, where they discussed being biracial women, their natural hair, and the definition of “diva”. 

At one point Carey accused the Duchess of Sussex of having “diva moments” after Markle noted that she does not “connect to” the “diva … persona.”

“You give us diva moments sometimes, Meghan,” the singer said. “Don’t act like [you don’t].”

“What kind of diva moments did I give you?” the former actress responded. As reported by Page Six, Carey clarified that she meant Markle’s “visual[s]” and not her personality.

READ MORE: Prince Harry Says Meghan Markle Became His ‘Soulmate’ in Africa

mom and daughter
Meghan Markle and her mother Doria Ragland / Getty

“It stopped me in my tracks … when she called me a diva!” the duchess narrates, as reported by Vulture. “You couldn’t see me, obviously, but I, I started to sweat a little bit. She meant diva as a compliment,” she continues. “But I heard it as a dig. I heard it as the word diva as I think of it. But in that moment, as she explained to me, she meant it as chic, as aspirational. And how one very charged word can mean something different for each of us — it’s mind-blowing to me.”

Elsewhere in the episode, Markle noted that she passed for white until she married Prince Harry and that’s when the world seem to stop when it was revealed that the American-born princess is the daughter of a beautiful Black woman.

“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,” she said, as reported by SandraRose.

Markle and Carey also spoke about their shared experiences as biracial women growing up in America.

“I didn’t fit in anywhere at all,” Mariah said of her childhood.

“Yeah, I understand that,” Meghan responded.

“You were so formative for me. Representation matters so much,” Meghan added, recalling moments as a young woman when Carey was one of the few in media representing biracial women.

“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.'”

Meghan said she was also inspired by biracial actress Halle Berry.

“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.”

“And I think for us, it’s very different because we’re light-skinned,” Meghan added. “You’re not treated as a Black woman. You’re not treated as a white woman. You sort of fit in between.”

Listen to the podcast below.

So, in the wake of Meghan Markle discussing her biracial identity with Mariah Carey via the podcast immediately above, CNN’s Don Lemon joined Brianna Keilar and John Berman to discuss her (Markel’s) thoughts on race. Watch below.

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