Meghan Markle Launches Spotify Podcast Series With Serena Williams Interview

Nearly two years after signing an exclusive podcast deal with audio giant Spotify, the first series from Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s Archewell Audio is making its debut on the service.

Markle, The Duchess of Sussex, is also the host of the series, called Archetypes. The first interview features Markle in conversation with tennis legend Serena Williams, who announced her intent to step away from the sport earlier this month. Spotify says next week’s episode will feature a conversation with Mariah Carey.

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Archewell inked its multiyear deal with Spotify in December 2020 and released a holiday special hosted by the couple later that month. There had been rumblings that the couple could part ways with Spotify at the height of its Joe Rogan controversy earlier this year, however the couple ultimately decided to stick with the platform after “encouraging” conversations with the platform’s executives.

Archetypes is the first official series to debut from the multiyear deal.

Williams revealed in the interview that she had been weighing her decision to “evolve” from tennis for some time and had consulted Markle and Harry. As for the decision to reveal the news in Vogue, Williams says that, too, had been in the works for a while.

“I was just sitting in the hotel at the desk, just typing and deleting and typing and thinking and then crying and sitting at my computer and tears streaming down my face as I’m writing these words and going back on these memories,” Williams recalled to Markle. “And it was just like, God, it was, it was really hard. But I was like, if I’m going to do this, it has to be Vogue September issue, right?”

“It doesn’t get, it doesn’t get better than that,” she added. “So, yeah, Anna [Wintour] was really grateful and super supportive and kept it secret, too, because it was like we did that photoshoot a while ago.”

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