The Duchess of Sussex thinks the reaction to her relationship with Prince Harry was “archetyped”.
The 41-year-old duchess was told that she was “lucky” to be dating Harry back in 2016 – but the 37-year-old prince pushed back against the “gendered” and “stereotyped” narrative.
In the latest episode of her ‘Archetypes’ podcast, the duchess told her showbiz pal Mindy Kaling: “When I started dating my husband, when we became engaged, everyone was like, ‘Oh My god, you’re just so lucky he chose you.’ And a certain point, after you hear it a million times over, you’re like, ‘Well, I chose him too’.
“But thankfully, I have a partner who was countering that narrative for me and going, ‘They’ve got it all wrong. I’m the lucky one because you chose me.’ But it is gendered and it’s archetyped and it’s stereotyped that ‘you’re so lucky,’ and it just feeds into this idea that you’re waiting for someone to tell you that you’re good enough as opposed to knowing that you’re good enough on your own.”
The duchess – who has Archie, three, and Lilibet, 15 months, with Harry – also admitted to wanting a “cookie cutter-looking perfect life” during her younger years.
The former ‘Suits’ star explained: “My parents split up when I was around two or three years old, and I always wanted this cookie cutter-looking perfect life.
“And you looked at that and there’s like a boy in a letterman jacket and I romanticised that. It’s all part of the things that make you have this idea of what you want your life to be like when you grow up.
“But I always thought, ‘I’m way more Betty than Veronica’ and am I going to get the guy one day and I was the smart one not the pretty one.”