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Caloroga Shark Media. Hello, and welcome to Palace Intrigue Game.
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Your host Mark Francis Megan Mirkle is on the cover
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of Harper's Bizarre, and the piece frames this moment as
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Megan finally authoring her own story after years are being
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defined by everyone else. The profile follows her from an
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event at the LaBrea tar Pits meeting girls from a
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STEM academy, to lunch at the Polo Lounge, to a
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stormy day in New York a week later. Throughout it,
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Meghan is unusually open, and she gives a long list
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of quotes that tell you exactly how she sees herself now.
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At the tar Pits, she immediately zeros in on the kids.
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She tells the writer, I don't know how any woman
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could see a young girl and not see herself in her,
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especially at that age. She jokes with them about their nails,
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asks what they're studying, and lights up when one mentions languages.
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Megan says, I'm learning French on doing lingo and proudly
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mentions her ninety day streak. When the piece shifts into
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Meghan's childhood, she calls herself such a little nerd and
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says my entire identity was wrapped up in being the
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smart one. She brings up the early nineties dating show studs,
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saying kids at school would play their own version and declare, well,
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Meghan can be the host. She laughs, saying she was
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always the kid who thought I can help coordinate, I
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can help organize, and I can facilitate. And she adds,
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I think I'm probably the same now. The reporter asks
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about Meghan's memories of the nineteen ninety two LA uprising.
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Meghan answers it in what the writer describes as almost
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cinematic detail. She says, it was cinematic in a way
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I don't think many people can understand. Smoke everywhere, smashed windows,
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so much fire and ash falling from the sky that
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it felt like snow. But she keeps returning to the
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same refrain. Los Angeles is resilient, and she says it
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was scary, but LA survived it. The profile then shifts
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to Meghan's current philosophy, work, motherhood's ambition, and the desire
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to play and have fun in her life. She says,
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I like the community of work and the connection. I
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think a lot of it is in my DNA. She
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pushes back softly against the trendy soft life idea, saying
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people should do what works for them, but that for her,
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showing up consistently is what matters. She says, how are
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you in one place is how you are in other places,
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and she clarifies that applies to potlucks at the kid's school,
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parties for friends, and her business. On mistakes and growth,
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Megan is unusually direct. You learn not to do it again.
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Then she expands, if all goes swimmingly, you don't learn
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from it. You don't learn anything. You're not going to grow.
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She calls herself a founder still learning, saying there's no
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such thing as perfect. I too get to make mistakes.
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She adds there's also not a lot of fun in
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trying to be perfect, so why try to do that
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if you want to have fun. One of the big
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thesis quotes in the piece is about authenticity. Meghan says,
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I think the moment that you start making all of
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your personal decisions based on external judgment, then you lose
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your authenticity. When the topic shifts to how people obsess
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over perfect moments, she says, I don't like things that
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feel overly realized. If you overwork the dough, it's not
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going to rise. She talks about working from home, saying
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my office is right by the kitchen, and I love
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that I can work from home. It's a great luxury.
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And she mentions that Lillabit often sits on her lap
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during meetings, whether she's reviewing P and L sheets or
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brainstorming creative. When the writer asks what she wants her
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kids to see when they watch her work, Meghan says,
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I hope they see the value of being brave, and
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she talks about letting them watch the preserves and jam
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bubbling on the stove. When you're young, you're a little
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more fearless, she says, and as we get older, we
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lose some of that. There's a lighter moments at the
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Polo Lounge. When the staff bring her a cappuccino with
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a photorealistic image of her face printed in the foam.
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Meghan smiles and says, oh, I recognize this picture. That's
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on my trip to South Africa. The New York section
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covers her surprise front row appearance and Balanciaga during Paris
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Fashion Week. Megan explains it by saying I was excited
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for him and that before the show she emailed the
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designer happy to come and support you, then adds we
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kept it a secret and was really fun. She gets
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reflective about boundaries. My boundaries became stronger once I came
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into the public eye, and this very she pauses and
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makes a face. I could think of any adjective to
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fill the blank and it would probably work. Then you
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find different ways to protect yourself, whether that's self preservation
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or it's just growing up. There's also a long section
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about her relationship with Harry. She says he loves me
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so boldly fully. She says he sees media she doesn't,
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and that no one in the world loves me more
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than him, so I know he's always going to make
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sure he has my back. Megan says Harry still has
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that childlike wonder and playfulness and that she was drawn
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to that and that shapes everything, even in business. I
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want us to play and have fun and explore him creative.
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She talks about being an old soul as a kid
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and says my mom would say I was just born
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that way. But she also says her mother taught her
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how to play, and she tells the stories about traveling
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with her picking greens in her grandmother's garden and learning
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how to make preserves. She laughs about Archie comics, saying
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people always ask her Betty or Veronica, and she says, oh, Betty,
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of course, she was so nice. There's also a section
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about Megan and Harry volunteering with the World Central Kitchen
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after the devastating wildfires in California. Meghan says she saw
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homes from her childhood reduced to ash and talks about
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service with dignity. It was less about just giving someone
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a handout, but giving it to them with dignity. She adds,
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can you treat it with the same level of care
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that you would if you had lost everything. The peace
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ends with Megan mentioning she's heading to lunch with Gloria
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steinem Glow as she calls her and saying, I've just
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always admired her. More palace in just a moment. Half
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as Bizarre was able to get some friends and colleagues
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of Meghan to say nice things about her first up
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as Terry Wood. She ran production at Oprah's Harpo Studio's
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executive produced the Oprah Interview with Meghan and Harry and
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worked with Meghan on the seemingly twice failed Archetypes podcast.
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Wood says Meghan understands her voice better than you know,
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better than any producer could put it out there. She
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says Meghan knows exactly how she wants to connect with people,
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and that with everything written about her, Megan focuses on
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trying to break through the noise so people see she's
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authentically herself. On the business side, Wood says not everyone
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launching a brand has to do it under this level
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of scrutiny, and that what Meghan is learning to navigate
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is the judgment that comes with being a businesswoman who
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is also globally famous. Then there's Kelly Zefgin, part of
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Meghan's tight in a circle in Montecito. Zeifchin says it's
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a small group of us that protect each other. She
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explains that Meghan reached out to her immediately when she
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lost her nine year old son and that from that
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moment on, there's not a day that goes by she
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hasn't checked in or I haven't checked in. She says.
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Megan isn't the type to show up once and disappears.
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She stays consistently and Meghan is funny, which she says
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might surprise people. Serena Williams is also quoted, and she
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talks about how natural their friendship is. Serena says, we
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love a good mimosa, and we could talk for one
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hundred hours and it feels like ten minutes go by.
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She calls Meghan so smart and says she's always learning
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something from her, including parenting advice. Serena says the last
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time they hung out, Meghan was talking about a child
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development expert she follows, and Serena has already started using
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the techniques Megan mentioned. Serena also explains why they clicked
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in the first place. She says they both have the
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same dry sense of humor and that they met at
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a Super Bowl party years ago, looked around and basically thought,
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why are we here, and they've been close to it since.
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And then you get the little detail from the New
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York trip. Meghan walks into a private brownstone and even
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though it's just her and the writer, the house manager
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still announces Meghan Duchess of Sussex, a reminder of the
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world she now lives in, even behind closed doors. In
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case you've glanced over that Meghan is having people announce
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her presence, don't worry. We'll get to that during the
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week anyway. That's the vibe of the supporting voices in
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the peace, protective friends, long term loyalty, and people who
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say she's smarter and funnier than the public narrative tends
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to allow. I have it. If you'd like to email
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us and addresses the palaceindric at gmail dot com, please
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follow us Spotify, Apple, the app of your choice, and
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leave us a nice review. If I'm joining the show
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by Mark Francis my thanks to John McDermott. This is
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Palace Injured and good terms