Meghan Markle has decided not to release any new episodes of her Spotify podcast, Archetypes, as a sign of respect following Queen Elizabeth II’s death.
Buckingham Palace announced at 6:30pm last Thursday that the Queen had died at the age of 96.
Her Majesty had been spending the summer at her Scottish home in Balmoral when she died surrounded by her eldest children, the newly-appointed King Charles III and Princess Anne.
Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, was coincidentally in the UK with husband Prince Harry for official engagements when the news broke of the monarch’s death.
The couple are remaining in the UK to support the rest of the Royal family ahead of the Queen’s funeral on September 19.
However, it means the Duke and Duchess have put their scheduled work commitments on hold for the time being.
Markle launched her brand new podcast series on streaming giant Spotify in August and has featured interviews with Mariah Carey, Serena Williams and Mindy Kaling so far.
However, it has been confirmed that the podcast is on hold with a message reading on the series’ Spotify page: ‘New episodes of Archetypes will be paused during the official mourning period for Her Majesty The Queen Elizabeth II.’
Members of the Royal family, Royal Household staff and representatives of the Royal Household on official duties, will observe a period of ‘Royal mourning’ until seven days after the Queen’s funeral next Monday.
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National mourning continues until the end of the day of the Queen’s funeral.
Markle, 41, has released three episodes of Archetypes since August 23 with conversations including the double standards women face when they are labelled ‘ambitious’, racial identity and life as a single woman and the stigma around it.
During her conversation with tennis legend Williams, she said: ‘I don’t remember personally feeling the negative connotation behind the word ambitious until I started dating my now husband, and apparently, ambition is a terrible, terrible thing. For women.
‘Since I felt the negativity behind it, it’s really hard to unfeel it. I can’t unsee it either in the millions of girls and women who make themselves smaller, so much smaller on a regular basis.’
In 2020, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex signed a lucrative deal with Spotify to host and produce podcasts worth an estimated $25million (£18million).
It is expected Markle will accompany Harry, 38, to the Queen’s funeral although their young children – son Archie, three, and one-year-old daughter Lilibet, named after Her Majesty – are currently in California where the family live.
The Duke and Duchess greeted the crowds of mourners who had gathered at Windsor Castle on Saturday, and surprised the supporters when they emerged with Prince William and Catherine, the Princess of Wales.
It was the first time in more than two years that the foursome had been pictured together publicly with tension mounting between them after Harry and Markle quit as senior working members of the Royal family in 2020. However, they put on a united front at Windsor and arrived and left in the same car driven by the Prince of Wales.
The Queen’s coffin has begun its final journey down to London, leaving Balmoral Castle on Sunday morning before arriving at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh where it will remain for two days. King Charles III has now flown up to Scotland to keep a vigil by the coffin on Monday evening, before Princess Anne accompanies her late mother on the flight to London on Wednesday.
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