A cluster of white tents has been set up at the La Brea Tar Pits, the active fossil-dig site and natural-history museum in Los Angeles, to receive a group of girls from a local STEM academy. One tent near the entrance is appointed with a handsome, worn-looking wooden desk with a tarp hanging behind it that\u2019s printed with a reproduction of a nature painting. It looks like the movie version of an archaeologist\u2019s field station. <\/p>\n
The 11- and 12-year-olds, in their purple-and-gray uniforms, are unaware of who they are about to meet. It\u2019s a warm September day, and I can hear them murmuring outside the tent. <\/p>\n
A golf cart pulls up, the gravel crunching beneath its tires. \u201cThe Duchess of Sussex,\u201d someone in the scrum announces. Meghan descends, dressed in wide-leg trousers, a silk blouse, and a small pair of pav\u00e9-diamond studs by the Ukrainian brand Guzema. They were a gift from her husband, Prince Harry, picked up on a recent trip to Kyiv with his Invictus Games Foundation. <\/p>\n Meghan lived just a few blocks from here as a child. She mentions that this is where she rode on the back of her mother\u2019s bike before she was allowed to ride here on her own. <\/p>\n Everyone is ushered into the tent, where a table is set up with boxes full of dirt and bone specimens. A museum educator begins to explain what they are looking at. Meghan is attuned to the girls; she asks one about her nails, another about what she\u2019s studying. When a girl mentions her love of languages, Meghan lights up. \u201cI\u2019m learning French on Duolingo,\u201d she says proudly, adding that she just hit a 90-day streak.<\/p>\n Meghan and the girls assemble for a group photo. Some girls look straight at the camera, while a few squint or stare off to the side\u2014an attempt, maybe, to stave off self-consciousness. This is a time, for many girls, when they become aware of being seen, sometimes benevolently, more often not. <\/p>\n Meghan, 44, stands in the middle of the group. She lives a life accompanied by a level of scrutiny that every tween girl imagines is always present. Except for Meghan, it is very real. \u201cI don\u2019t know how any woman could see a young girl and not see herself in her, especially at that age,\u201d Meghan tells me later.<\/p>\n When Meghan became engaged to Prince Harry in 2017, it triggered a tectonic shift in the culture. Already an actress on the popular cable drama Suits<\/em> and the purveyor of an aspirational lifestyle brand, the Tig, Meghan shot to global superstardom and became the subject of an intense public fascination made up of equal parts adoration and vitriol. The contrast in Meghan and Harry\u2019s backgrounds\u2014she was American, and he was British; she was a working actress from a modest family, and he was a royal; she was biracial, and he was a symbol for an imaginary monoracial Britain\u2014scrambled multiple narratives. Depending on your perspective, their union symbolized the triumph of liberal, postracial meritocracy or the downfall of traditional, conservative values. In 2020, when the couple announced their intention to \u201cstep back\u201d from royal duties and moved to California (the tabloids dubbed it \u201cMegxit\u201d), it was a cultural inflection point: Was this a refutation of generational trauma or millennials being afraid of hard work? In all of those stories, though, Meghan lost her agency and her humanity. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s <\/em>NO SUCH THING as <\/em>PERFECT. I, too, get to make<\/em> MISTAKES….There\u2019s also <\/em>NOT a lot of <\/em>FUN in <\/em>TRYING to be <\/em>PERFECT. So <\/em>WHY TRY to do that if you want to have <\/em>FUN?\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/section>\n \u201cMeghan understands her voice better than you, better than any producer could put it out there,\u201d says Terry Wood, former executive vice president at Harpo Productions, Oprah Winfrey\u2019s production company. Wood executive-produced the explosive 2021 Oprah interview with Meghan and Harry, after they stepped back from the royal family (its airing triggered an aftershock), and worked with Meghan on the production of her podcast Archetypes.<\/em> \u201cShe knows how she comes across, and she knows how she wants to connect. She understands that so much has been written about her that when she does something, she wants to break through that noise so people see that she is authentically trying to be herself.\u201d <\/p>\n Meghan has acquired a level of fame that is irrevocable. The question becomes, what does one woman do with that amount of power and tricky sort of influence? In the five years since leaving the Firm (what some members of the royal family call the institution that dictates their lives), Meghan has remained focused on the projects she has built for herself and that fit her lifestyle as a mother of young children (Prince Archie, six, and Princess Lilibet, four). Together with Prince Harry, she launched the nonprofit Archewell Foundation in 2020 with the mission to \u201cshow up, do good.\u201d She has signed development deals with Spotify and Netflix. Her lifestyle series, With Love, Meghan,<\/em> in which she invites friends to a Nancy Meyers\u2013esque California home to cook, craft, and garden with her, coincided with the launch of her brand, As Ever, which sells scented candles, preserves, flower sprinkles, and wine. After years of others attempting to fit her into their narratives, she is now pursuing a life and a career that feel authentic to her and her alone\u2014and allowing herself to enjoy it too. <\/p>\n The appearance at the La Brea Tar Pits has wrapped, and now it\u2019s lunchtime at the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel. I\u2019ve followed Meghan underneath the iconic green-and-white-striped awning of the entryway and through the cream-carpeted lobby and outdoors onto the patio, where a live piano player\u2019s notes accompany our procession. Long the<\/em> see-and-be-seen spot for Hollywood dealmaking and politicking, it is a calculated choice as the site for my first interview with Meghan. We are ushered to a circular table in the corner of the garden, a prime seat where we can see the other diners and they can see the three of us. (The Sussexes\u2019 chief communications officer sits between us.) We order a burger and fries for the table, and Meghan orders the Polo Power Bowl. When it arrives, she holds up the dish, taking genuine delight in the perfectly arranged produce, aligned to make a rainbow. During our conversation, Meghan pauses to chat with the restaurateur Michael Chow (she says his restaurant catered a recent birthday for Prince Harry, or \u201cH,\u201d as she always refers to him) and has a whispered conference with a famous film titan. <\/p>\n How do powerful women flex? Do they lead with deference or dominance? Meghan seems to lead with affability. The warmth with which she greets each of these men, and with which they reciprocate, is genuine. With me, her interviewer, where the power balance shifts back and forth, she is warm and open, and she always maintains direct eye contact. <\/p>\n It\u2019s a skill she\u2019s honed since childhood. \u201cI was such a little nerd,\u201d she says. \u201cMy entire identity was wrapped up in being the smart one. There used to be this show\u2009\u2026\u2009I\u2019m dating myself, but do you remember Studs<\/em>?\u201d This is where I am reminded that Meghan, like me, is an elder millennial, born in 1981. We are a maligned bunch, hated by our elders for our generational insistence on authenticity and social justice, derided by those younger for our earnest belief that the world is capable of change\u2014what Gen Z has labeled \u201ccringe.\u201d Studs<\/em> is an elder-millennial touchpoint, a dating game show that aired on Fox in the early \u201990s. I distinctly remember my mom and her friends hating it because of how often the contestants used the word buns.<\/em> \u201cAfter school, kids would enact a little makeshift version of Studs<\/em> to play. They were like, \u2018Well, Meghan can be the host,\u2019\u2009\u201d she says. \u201cI had the personality type of \u2018I can help coordinate, I can help organize, and I can facilitate.\u2019 I think I\u2019m probably the same now.\u201d<\/p>\n She brings up the girls at the Tar Pits and their vulnerability, which she clearly empathizes with. It makes sense. Some of those girls are the same age, 11, as Meghan was when she graduated from Hollywood Little Red School House. It\u2019s the age she was when she wrote a letter to Procter & Gamble to protest gender stereotypes in the company\u2019s advertising. It was also around the time of the 1992 L.A. uprising. When I ask her about that time now, she says, \u201cIt was cinematic in a way I don\u2019t think many people can understand.\u200a\u2026\u2009It was so visual. Smoke everywhere. People were driving around with the back of their SUVs open. I saw people running with boxes of diapers, smashed windows, so much fire and ash falling from the sky that it felt like snow.\u201d As we sit at the Polo Lounge, the city is currently at the center of a national fight over the enforcement of this administration\u2019s immigration policy and the continued deployment of the National Guard to urban areas. But the city, Meghan says many times over the course of our conversation, is \u201cresilient.\u201d \u201cIt was scary, but L.A. survived it.\u201d <\/p>\n For Meghan, the trajectory of her life has come full circle. The Sussexes moved to California in 2020, settling in Montecito, a secluded, wealthy enclave of celebrity entrepreneurs like Oprah Winfrey and Gwyneth Paltrow. There, Meghan reconnected with a tight-knit circle of women, including Kelly Zajfen, who met Meghan when they were both in their 20s. \u201cIt is a small group of us that protect each other,\u201d Zajfen says. They had fallen out of touch, but Meghan reached out in 2022 after she found out that Zajfen\u2019s nine-year-old son had passed away from Covid-19 and viral meningitis. \u201cThe second I heard her voice, it felt like I was right back with her,\u201d Zajfen says. Zajfen is on the board of the Alliance for Children\u2019s Rights, a nonprofit that provides support for children and teens in California\u2019s foster-care system and that Meghan and Harry, through their Archewell Foundation, have supported. \u201cThere\u2019s not a day that goes by that she hasn\u2019t checked in or I haven\u2019t checked in,\u201d Zajfen says. \u201cSomeone can show up in a time of need or grief. And oftentimes they don\u2019t stay or they\u2019re only here for a short amount of time. But Meghan just always made herself available to all of us.\u201d <\/p>\n Meghan is of a generation of women who were taught to seek self-actualization through work. This same group of millennial women experienced a radical shift once work was disrupted by the 2020 pandemic. I ask her, despite her extraordinary circumstances, if she has experienced any of that same upending shift. <\/p>\n \u201cI like the community of work and the connection,\u201d Meghan says. \u201cI think a lot of it is in my DNA.\u201d It\u2019s an attitude in contrast with the current trend of valorizing a soft life\u2014that is, a life without work outside the home, with an emphasis on ease, which requires its own level of hidden labor. \u201cYou should do what works for you,\u201d Meghan says diplomatically. For her, though, \u201cwhen people start to see your work ethic and really understand how dedicated you are to things\u2014how you are in one place, I believe, is how you are in other places. So for me, that\u2019s how I show up when I do potlucks at my kids\u2019 school, that\u2019s how I show up when putting a party together for my friend who just had a baby, that\u2019s how I show up in my business.\u201d <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI think the <\/em>MOMENT that you <\/em>START making all of your <\/em>PERSONAL DECISIONS based on <\/em>EXTERNAL JUDGMENT, then you<\/em> LOSE your<\/em> AUTHENTICITY.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/section>\n The fear of failure often runs in tandem with the millennial desire to achieve, best illustrated in the specter of the girlboss. When I broach the topic and ask Meghan what she\u2019s learned from her mistakes, she deadpans, \u201cYou learn not to do it again,\u201d before clarifying: \u201cIf it all goes swimmingly, you don\u2019t learn from it. If you don\u2019t learn anything, you\u2019re not going to grow.\u201d She continues, \u201cI\u2019m a mom with kids at that age where they are constantly learning something new. I watch them face things that feel completely insurmountable every day. But you can remember and say, \u2018I know it seems really hard right now, but trust me, that\u2019s going to come so easily soon.\u2019 I can give myself the same grace as a founder. There\u2019s no such thing as perfect. I, too, get to make mistakes.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s also not a lot of fun in trying to be perfect,\u201d Meghan says. \u201cSo why try to do that if you want to have fun?\u201d <\/p>\n And by her good friend Serena Williams\u2019s account, Meghan does. \u201cWe love a good mimosa,\u201d Williams says. \u201cWe could talk for a hundred hours, and it feels like 10 minutes go by, and it\u2019s like we never stop smiling.\u201d <\/p>\n Zajfen tells me, \u201cShe\u2019s funny. I think maybe that\u2019s surprising to people.\u201d<\/p>\n Williams, who met Meghan over a decade ago at a Super Bowl party, says, \u201cWe both definitely have a dry sense of humor. I think that\u2019s why we hit it off for no reason at this silly football thing. We were just like, \u2018Why are we here? To meet you?\u2019 Apparently, and we\u2019ve been lifelong friends ever since.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t like things that feel overly realized,\u201d Meghan says. \u201cIf you overwork the dough, it\u2019s not going to rise. And sometimes I think the stress that people put on moments\u2009\u2026\u2009they are so consumed in them that you lose the fun of why you are doing something.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNot everyone who starts a business is under the microscope that she\u2019s under,\u201d Terry Wood says. \u201cWhat she is learning to weather and ride out is the judgment that happens as a businesswoman when you are that famous.\u201d<\/p>\n A waiter comes to clear the table, but Meghan asks him to leave the fries behind. I ask her if she ever feels the need to compartmentalize the parts of her life: work and family. \u201cMy office is right by the kitchen, and I love that I can work from home,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s a great luxury.\u201d Her daughter, Lilibet, \u201ccomes and sits on my lap when I\u2019m in the middle of the meeting, whether it\u2019s about P and L for my brand or it\u2019s about something creative.\u201d<\/p>\n When I ask Meghan what she hopes her kids see when they see her working, she tells me, \u201cI hope they see the value of being brave. They saw it when the jam was just a pot on the stove, bubbling. When you\u2019re young,\u201d she adds, \u201dI think you are a little bit more fearless. As we get older, we lose some of that.\u201d<\/p>\n Our allotted time at the table is coming to a close. The last of the meal is whisked away, and a waiter comes by with an unsolicited cappuccino. In the foam on top, the restaurant has printed a photorealistic image of Meghan. \u201cOh,\u201d she says, smiling down at it. \u201cI recognize this picture. That\u2019s from our trip to South Africa.\u201d (Prince Harry and Meghan toured the country in 2019.) It\u2019s a lovely and absurd perk of celebrity, and Meghan is tickled enough to take a photo of it.<\/p>\n When I meet up with Meghan a week later on a stormy day in New York, she\u2019s wearing black leggings and an oversize Northwestern sweatshirt (her alma mater). Her hair is pulled back, and if she has any makeup on, it\u2019s difficult to tell; her skin is bare, and some of her freckles are visible. She looks like she could still be in college. <\/p>\n We\u2019re in a grand brownstone on the Upper East Side that belongs to one of Meghan\u2019s friends. When I enter, the house manager announces, \u201cMeghan, Duchess of Sussex,\u201d even though we appear to be the only other two people in the house. Meghan and Harry are in New York to receive the Humanitarians of the Year Award from Project Healthy Minds, a nonprofit focused on mental health. We try to decide where we will have our talk: downstairs in the kitchen, with its oak countertops and view of the patio, or upstairs. She gestures toward the second floor of the house, which is accessed via a glass elevator in the living room. <\/p>\n In the week since we last met, Meghan caused a sensation when she made a surprise appearance at the Balenciaga show during Paris Fashion Week, the first with Pierpaolo Piccioli at the helm. The two have known each other for years. \u201cI was excited for him,\u201d she says. \u201cI reached out and I said, \u2018Happy to come and support you.\u2019 We kept it a secret, and it was really fun.\u201d <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cYou find <\/em>DIFFERENT WAYS to <\/em>PROTECT YOURSELF, whether that\u2019s<\/em> SELF-PRESERVATION or it\u2019s just <\/em>GROWING UP.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/section>\n There\u2019s that word again. \u201cI love being able to do both,\u201d Meghan says, \u201cto play in the sandbox with my kids and to play in the front row at a show. I think the moment that you start making all of your personal decisions based on external judgment, then you lose your authenticity.\u201d I point out that when women in the public eye are multidimensional, they tend to get a lot of flak. \u201cWhy do you think that is?\u201d Meghan asks me. Here, I launch into a tangent about our culture\u2019s deep and historical distrust of women\u2019s voices in public. \u201cYou know what I mean?\u201d I finally say. Meghan deadpans again, \u201cWell. Yeah.\u201d <\/p>\n I tell her it sounds like she has good boundaries. \u201cI think my boundaries became stronger once I came into the public eye in this very\u200a\u2026\u201d she pauses and makes a face, similar to the one she made when talking about making mistakes, and laughs. \u201cI could think of any adjective to fill the blank. And it would probably work. You find different ways to protect yourself, whether that\u2019s self-preservation or it\u2019s just growing up.\u201d <\/p>\n Her circle of trust is tight. She puts her hand on her heart when she talks about her husband. \u201cHe loves me so boldly, fully, and he also has a different perspective because he sees media that I wouldn\u2019t,\u201d she says. \u201cNo one in the world loves me more than him, so I know he\u2019s always going to make sure that he has my back.\u201d With Harry, Meghan explains, \u201cyou have someone who just has this childlike wonder and playfulness. I was so drawn to that, and he brought that out in me. That\u2019s translated into every part of our life. Even in business, I want us to play and have fun and explore and be creative.\u201d <\/p>\n Meghan also credits her mother, Doria Ragland, with teaching her how to play. \u201cAs a child, I was very much an old soul,\u201d she says. \u201cThat\u2019s been part of my wiring. My mom would say I was just born that way.\u201d Her mother, in contrast, was \u201ca free spirit,\u201d and they were a close duo. A travel agent during part of Meghan\u2019s childhood, Ragland would use her employee discounts so they could travel to Mexico for Day of the Dead. Meghan\u2019s maternal grandmother, another strong single woman, lived around the corner. It was at her grandmother\u2019s that Meghan learned about food. Her mother was not a regular cook, and Meghan remembers most of the food at her table being eaten in haste\u2014Carnation instant-breakfast shakes in the morning, deli sandwiches for lunch (though these were often an attempt to deliver on Meghan\u2019s request to have a Subway sandwich like she\u2019d seen in the commercials). Her grandmother, whose family came from Tennessee, had a garden where Meghan helped pick greens and make preserves. <\/p>\n As she describes it, it was a childhood with close ties, though she says her parenting style is \u201cvery different\u201d from her mother\u2019s; she has made it a study, using books and apps, a diligence that has made her an authority within her friend circle. \u201cShe\u2019s just so smart, and I feel like no matter what, I can always learn from her,\u201d says Williams. The last time the two hung out, Meghan \u201cwas talking about this amazing woman who is really helpful and how to talk to kids. I\u2019m implementing so much that she\u2019s teaching me.\u201d <\/p>\n But when Meghan was growing up, her understanding of how to be a mother and a girl came from the media as much as it did from the women around her. She spoke of wanting to be a mother because of the capable sitcom moms she watched on TGIF shows and because of loving Archie comics. <\/p>\n \u201cEveryone was like, \u2018Do you want to be a Betty or a Veronica?\u2019\u2009\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cWhich one did you want to be?\u201d I ask her. <\/p>\n \u201cOh, Betty, of course,\u201d she says, laughing. \u201cShe was so nice.\u201d <\/p>\n The L.A. of Meghan\u2019s childhood\u2014diverse working-class neighborhoods and Erewhon \u201cbefore it was cool\u201d\u2014is gone now. It\u2019s been changed by time but also was decimated by fire last winter. Pasadena and Altadena, two of the communities hardest hit, were places she spent a lot of time during her adolescence: \u201cI saw homes where I used to have sleepovers reduced to ash.\u201d Meghan and Harry were both spotted in the aftermath, volunteering with chef Jos\u00e9 Andr\u00e9s and his World Central Kitchen nonprofit. \u201cIt was less about just giving someone a handout, but giving it to them with dignity,\u201d she says. \u201cCan you treat it with the same level of care that you would if you had lost everything?\u201d <\/p>\n It\u2019s nearly time for me to go. Meghan tells me that she\u2019ll be having lunch soon with Gloria Steinem, or Glo, as she calls her. They met during the pandemic; a mutual acquaintance was in their shared pod. Steinem came to Thanksgiving at Meghan\u2019s house. \u201cI\u2019ve just always admired her,\u201d she says. Meghan is remarkably at ease with the surrealism of global celebrity. In fact, she seems to enjoy it.<\/p>\n The house is quiet. The streets outside are too, because of the storm. When I walk to the door, I turn and can see Meghan turn back to the kitchen, illuminated by the green light of the rain-soaked garden, ready to move on to the next thing.<\/p>\n![\"stylish](\"https:\/\/hips.hearstapps.com\/hmg-prod\/images\/hbz120125wellcoverstory-003-wm-690e2e69e1901.jpg?resize=980:*\" "\\"stylish")
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