The Duchess of Sussex feels she wasn’t “treated as a black woman” until she started dating Prince Harry.
The 41-year-old duchess identifies as being mixed race, and she believes that the focus on her race became intense when she started dating Harry in 2016.
During a conversation with Mariah Carey on her “Archetypes” podcast, the duchess shared: “I had read this article about Halle Berry, and they were asking her how she felt being treated as a mixed-race woman in the world.
“And her response was her saying, ‘Well, your experience through the world is how people view you.’ So she said because she was darker in colour, she was being treated as a black woman, not as a mixed woman.
“And I think for us, it’s very different because we’re light-skinned. You’re not treated as a black woman. You’re not treated as a white woman. You sort of fit in between.”
The duchess – who has Archie, 3, and Lilibet, 14 months, with Harry – starred in the TV drama series “Suits” before she started dating the prince.
And she recalled how her life changed when news of their romance became public.
The duchess, who married Harry in 2018, said: “I mean, if there’s any time in my life that it’s been more focused on my race, it’s only once I started dating my husband. Then I started to understand what it was like to be treated like a black woman.
“Because up until then, I had been treated like a mixed woman. And things really shifted.”
Mariah, 53, admitted that she’s felt under pressure at times to identify as black or white.
She said: “I always thought it should be okay to say I’m mixed. Like, it should be okay to say that. But people want you to choose.”