Yahoo News Meghan Markle and Mariah Carey Bond Over Caring for Their Natural Hair
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Meghan Markle and Mariah Carey are untangling things.
The Duchess of Sussex, 41, welcomed the 53-year-old singer to her Archetypes podcast Tuesday, where they dissected definitions of "diva" and being biracial women.
Early in the episode, Meghan revealed she admired Mariah since she was a teenager and related to her because she was also biracial. The duchess said the 1993 music video for "Dreamlover" was a favorite, and the pop icon recalled how the public didn't quite know what to make of her when she splashed onto the scene.
"The 'Dreamlover' video… people were saying, 'girl next door,' because there was also this ambiguity about me, racially, that fed into that, and those curls," Mariah said of the clip, where her hair was naturally curly.
"Here's the thing — they didn't know how to do my hair, because if it was a white hairdresser that had never dealt with textured hair, they would tend to do a different thing. And my hair would be like, 'You're not doing that!' " she said. "And then if somebody that had only dealt with ethnic hair, it would become too much product and too much weight."
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Meghan interjected, agreeing with the feeling of being "shellacked" by "so much heavy hair grease" in the past when her hair was in unfamiliar hands.
The "All I Want for Christmas Is You" singer said "nobody" knew what to do with her hair when she was a little girl, growing up with a white mom and a Black dad.
"I think sometimes when it's the other way around, you get the benefit of someone who's dealt with textured hair," Carey said, alluding to female family members familiar with natural tresses.
Sharing a story from her own childhood, Meghan said that because her hair is "so curly and so, so thick," her maternal grandmother Jeanette was tasked with styling her hair.
"She'd go, 'Just hold on to the sink,' and I would grip my little hands on both sides,' " she remembered, adding that there was "no luxury of being tender-headed" when her grandmother wielded the brush.
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Closing the episode, Meghan said that it was an adolescent dream come true to sit down with the "All I Want for Christmas Is You" singer.
"When I was a young teenager, I wanted to dress, look, be, sing, do everything like Mariah Carey," she explained. "She was so glamorous and fabulous and talented. She was successful. And she was mixed, like me. She was an aspirational figure I could see and you have to see it to believe it, they say. Well, I could see her. And it made me feel like I was also seen."
However, The Bench author said she was "stopped in her tracks" at one point during their chat when the five-time Grammy Award winner told the host she occasionally had "diva moments."
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"You couldn't see me, obviously, but I started to sweat a little bit…I just kept thinking, in that moment, was my girl crush coming to a quick demise? Does she actually not see me?" Meghan said before Mariah clarified her connotation.
"When she said 'diva,' she was talking about the way that I dress, the posture, the clothing, the 'fabulousness' as she sees it. She meant diva as a compliment, but I heard it as a dig," Meghan mentioned. "In that moment, as she explained to me, she meant it as chic, as aspirational. And how one very charged word can mean something different for each of us, it's mind-blowing to me."
Reflecting on the almost-awkward moment and the future of Archetypes, Meghan said that working through the snafu made her see "that for some, reclaiming the words is what they feel will propel us forward."
