Everything we know about Meghan Markle’s new podcast, Archetypes

UPDATE: Spotify has confirmed the imminent arrival of Meghan Markle’s first podcast, Archetypes, will launch on the platform later this year.

Giving us a taste for what to expect, the streamer announced that the series would see Markle interview historians about the history behind stereotypes that get levelled against women, as well as speak to a number of women whose experiences and public personas have been shaped by these stereotypes.

As part of the one-minute teaser, Markle describes the podcast as a conversation about how “we talk about women: the words that raise our girls, and how the media reflects women back to us”.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle signed a deal with the music and podcast streaming service in early 2020 for a reported $25 million, but with only one special Christmas episode to show for it and a delay in hiring staff, it looked like maybe the deal had gone off track.

It was reported early in 2022 that Spotify had decided to begin hiring staff to help move along their major podcasting deal with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex as the two-year-mark passed with little to show for it other than one holiday special with little real content.

And now it seems like Spotify’s efforts to get the ball rolling have been successful, with Page Six first reporting that the debut podcast from Archewell Audio will launch later this summer. While there’s little information as to what the podcast will focus on, considering the Duke and Duchess’ statement expressing concern over the Covid-19 misinformation perpetuated by Spotify’s lead podcaster, Joe Rogan, it seems that this might make up some part of the new show.

This would fall in line with the type of content they had agreed to produce for Netflix, with the Duchess saying of that multi-million dollar deal, “Our focus will be on creating content that informs but also gives hope. As new parents, making inspirational family programming is also important to us.” As of yet, nothing has come to fruition in this deal either, although it was reported late last year that the couple might be secretly filming a documentary for Netflix after they were spotted with a videographer in New York last September.