Meghan Markle has opened up about her "fear of failure" amid growing controversy over her HRH style.
In her latest podcast, where she interviewed "close friend" Jamie Kern Lima, the Duchess of Sussex, claimed that she is an over-achiever due to her blood type being A positive, while also admitting that she has had a tendency to ignore her gut feelings.
This chat between the pair sparked a huge storm over Markle's alleged use of her HRH style, which contradicts an agreement with Buckingham Palace.
It happened after Meghan had sent Kern Lima a gift basket of ice cream and homemade jam, which included a monogrammed card featuring a printed italic message: "With Compliments of HRH The Duchess of Sussex".
An image of this gift bag appeared, causing controversy, as part of the Megxit negotiations with the Palace, Prince Harry and Meghan had agreed to stop using their HRH styles when they stepped down from their senior royal roles in 2020.
Reports that the couple were still using them, were denied by Meghan's representatives.
In the latest episode of her podcast, Meghan’s Confessions Of A Female Founder, the former Suits star explained that she started small with her jam making business, due to her fear of failing.
Meghan said: "At the beginning, I just liked making jam. All I liked to do was just make jam and preserves. And it went from 'OK, I’m going to share this jam with lots of friends and family’, to ‘People really like it and it brings me joy, so maybe I can share it more broadly".
"But even then I was in so much fear of failure or opinion that I wasn’t thinking big enough at first".
Markle also revealed that she initially only applied for a cottage licence so she could sell jam at farmers' markets in California.
Elsewhere, Meghan Markle paid homage to presenter Oprah Winfrey, who inspired her to channel her own "essence" in her business. Oprah Winfrey also carried out that infamous bombshell with Harry and Meghan, where they accused the royal family of racism and failing to help Meghan who claimed she was suicidal.
She said: "You know Oprah, who I know is a mentor and friend to you … she was the one that said ‘There are tons of things you can put your name on, but for you and how you like to show up for people, once you figure out how to encapsulate your essence, then you’ll know’".
At this point, Kern Lima asked Meghan "Well, are you OK?".
"Yeah, well, you saw my text yesterday but there’s a lot going on. That’s for our rocking chairs", Markle said.
Meghan also said that she did not know about Kern Lima's success as co-founder of IT Cosmetics, when she first met her.
"I didn’t know any of that. I knew none of that. I just knew her as Jamie, my new neighbour, and she soon became my rocking chair friend – you know, the kind of person could just go and sit in your sweats and cozies with no make-up on and just chat for hours".
Elsewhere in the interview, Meghan also revealed that her blood type is A positive, which she claimed is an example of her "overachieving".
She said: "I feel like we haven’t talked about our blood type, but yours is probably an A positive like mine, because I was like ‘Even my blood is over-achieving’".
Markle also went on to reveal that back in her days as an actress, while auditioning for commercials, her agent would not submit her for beauty or skincare adverts, owing to her having freckles.
"They’re like ‘No, no, no, it’s never gonna work, because freckles aren’t a sign of beauty’. It was, you couldn’t see yourself reflected there", she explained.
She also spoke about going against her adviser's suggestions of trusting her instincts, as well accusations of ignoring advice from royal aides when she was a working royal.
"When there are lots of opinions and you’re grappling and you’re trying to figure it out, it’s like, when do you trust your gut, or when do you trust the advice?", she said.
"And especially if you enlist someone to be an adviser, and at what point do you have to sit there, get quiet with yourself and be able to confidently look at them and say that maybe what works, but that’s not what’s going to work for me?".
