Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s son, Archie, experienced a terrifying moment during their royal tour to Africa in 2019.
Markle detailed the incident during an episode of her “Archetypes” podcast.
While speaking with Serena Williams, Markle explained how the couple was finishing an engagement when they were told there had been a fire at the residence where they were staying with Archie.
“And so we’re in the car. We had just landed, what, an hour or two hours before racing back? We get back our amazing nanny, Lauren, who we’d had all the way until, in Canada here. Lauren in floods of tears. She was supposed to put Archie down for his nap and she just said, ‘You know what? Let me just go get a snack downstairs,'” Markle said.
She continued, “And she was from Zimbabwe and we loved that she would always tie him on her, her back with a mud cloth, and her instinct was like, Let me just bring him with me before I put him down. In that amount of time that she went downstairs.”
According to Markle, “The heater in the nursery caught on fire. There was no smoke detector. Someone happened to just smell smoke down the hallway went in, fire extinguished. He was supposed to be sleeping in there.”
Listen to the episode below:
Reflecting on the moment the couple arrived, Markle told Williams, “And of course, as a mother, you go, ‘Oh, my God, what?’ Everyone’s in tears, everyone’s shaken. And what do we have to do? Go out and do another official engagement? I said, ‘This doesn’t make any sense.'”
Williams responded, “I couldn’t have done that. I would have said, ‘Uh-uh.'”
The podcast first premiered Tuesday.
According to a description of the podcast, Markle and her guests “investigate, dissect, and subvert the labels that try to hold women back.”
Spotify and the royal couple’s Archewell Audio struck a deal in 2020, as NBC News noted.
Archewell said, as part of its deal with Spotify, it was “committed to producing programming that uplifts and entertains audiences around the world; spotlights diverse perspectives and voices; and builds community through shared experience, narratives and values.”
