Meghan Markle said labeling a woman “difficult” is often “a way to hide some of her really awesome qualities”—having been nicknamed “Duchess Difficult” in the U.K. media.
The Duchess of Sussex’s latest Archetypes Spotify podcast is called “To ‘B’ or Not to ‘B’?” and deals with what Meghan described as the “b-word.”
The choice of title will likely have raised eyebrows in the British media, which has for years been debating allegations Meghan bullied her staff at Kensington Palace while she was a working royal.
However, the word Meghan was referencing was in fact “b****,” rather than the word “bully.”
Chris Jackson/Getty Images
Needless to say, Meghan’s comments appear to pay at the very least a passing reference to allegations against her.
Meghan told Archetypes: “So, perhaps the truth is that labeling a woman as the ‘b-word’ or as ‘difficult’ is often a deflection. A way to hide some of her really awesome qualities, her persistence or strength or perseverance, her strong opinion, maybe even her resilience and those are the very qualities we’re going to be uncovering today.”
The duchess was accused of bullying two PAs out of Kensington Palace by former communications secretary Jason Knauf in October 2018, whose email to a superior also expressed concern for aide Samantha Cohen.
Two months later, a story appeared in The Sunday Times quoting an anonymous source suggesting staff found Meghan difficult to work with, however, at that stage there was no mention of bullying.
The headline read: “Meghan loses second close aide, Samantha Cohen, as rumours swirl of ‘Duchess Difficult.'”
In her Archetypes episode, Meghan talks to comedian, actress and writer Robin Thede, who says the word “b****” is used to smear a woman who “who goes after what she wants.”
Meghan said: “In other words, I think what Robin’s getting at and what these people are implying when they use that very charged word, is that, this woman. Oh, she’s difficult, which is really just a euphemism, or is probably not even a euphemism.
“It’s really a code word for the b-word. And yet, Robin is one of the many women who’ve made a choice, to embrace, the b-word, and almost reclaim it, if we’re going to hear it, anyway, right?”
Meghan added, however, that “I have zero interest in reclaiming” the b-word and repeatedly avoided using it during the episode.
