Dylan Bettencourt
Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex and – as far as we know – not an anti-apartheid hero, said that she heard her wedding was celebrated in SA like Nelson Mandela’s release from prison.
In an interview with an American magazine, Markle recalled a moment from 2019 when she attended the London premiere of The Lion King, saying “I had given birth to Archie. It was such a cruel chapter. I was scared to go out.”
A South African cast member then pulled her aside to tell her how her marriage was celebrated in South Africa.
“He was just like light. He said, ‘I need you to know, when you married into this family, we rejoiced in the streets the same way we did when Mandela was freed from prison’,” Markle told The Cut.
Markle has a love-hate relationship with South Africa after she revealed how her son was nearly caught in a fire at a nursery during a visit to the country.
After her revelations in her first podcast Archetypes, South Africans on Twitter felt the Duchess made the country seem worse than what it is.
As a result the hashtag #VoetsakMeghan was trending throughout the weekend but Markle, as she touched on during the interview, is no stranger to online abuse.
The grandson of the first South African democratic president Zwelivelile “Mandla” Mandela dismissed the celebrations of Markle’s wedding.
“We would say to people that our struggle cannot be likened to people dancing in the streets and chanting for Madiba’s name,” he told MailOnline.
“It has to speak to the scars and the painful past we come from.”
Mandela’s grandson did offer advice to Markle on how she could potentially be compared to the nobel peace prize winner in the future.
“Get out there, pull up your sleeves and better the lives of ordinary people in England and in the United Kingdom,” Zwelivelile said.
“For the personality she is, she can do a lot of good in the global community by adopting the causes that Madiba championed.”
Image source: @Town&CountryMagazine
