Duchess Meghan Recounts Horrifying Fire in Archie's Bedroom and 'Amazing Nanny' Who Saved Him
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No one could ever labor under the illusion that life has been smooth sailing for Meghan Markle since her marriage to a British prince in 2018—and yesterday we learned yet another shocking story from her time as a senior royal.
Duchess Meghan shared the heart-wrenching story on the debut episode of her podcast, Archetypes, which took the form of a conversation between her and her friend and tennis superstar Serena Williams.
During the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s wildly successful tour of South Africa in 2019, the couple were at an engagement when they learned that the nursery in which their 4-month-old son, Archie, had been sleeping had caught fire.
Related: Duchess Kate and William Are Moving Their Kids Out of London
Meghan recollected the moment that she stood on a tree stump delivering a speech to women and girls, and afterwards being told that there had been a fire “in the baby’s room.”
Meghan and Prince Harry rushed back to the housing unit where they were staying to be reunited with their son, where their “amazing nanny” Lauren was in “floods of tears.”
Lauren had been putting Archie down for his nap but then decided to tie him to her back—which is the custom in Zimbabwe, where Lauren is from—while she went to get a snack downstairs.
“In that amount of time that she went downstairs, the heater in the nursery caught on fire,” Meghan said, “There was no smoke detector. Someone happened to just smell smoke down the hallway went in, fire extinguished.”
Archie “was supposed to be sleeping in there,” Meghan went on, adding that everyone was shaken and “in tears.”
Related: Prince Harry and Meghan Are Back! Everything We Know About Their Upcoming Trip to the UK
Relating how she and Harry were expected to put on a brave face and leave Archie again in order to attend another engagement, without telling anyone what had happened, Meghan described how the focus ended up “being on how it looks instead of how it feels.”
Famously, it was during the South African tour that a visibly distressed Meghan thanked a journalist for asking if she was OK saying, “Not many people have asked.”
