Meghan Markle releases first episode of Spotify podcast ‘Archetypes,’ kicks off series with Serena Williams

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Meghan Markle has officially dropped her Spotify podcast.

The first full episode of "Archetypes," which is hosted by the Duchess of Sussex, was released on Tuesday. Her first guest is longtime pal and tennis champ Serena Williams.

The 41-year-old started the episode by remembering how "furious" she felt as an 11-year-old girl when she saw a Procter & Gamble commercial that advertised a dishwashing soap solely to women. In response, she went on a "letter writing campaign," which included reaching out to then-first lady Hillary Clinton. The move worked, and the company changed its language in the commercial.

The mother of two said it was an "awakening to the millions of ways, big and small, that our society tries to box women in, to hold women back, to tell women who and what they should and can be."

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Meghan Markle dropped her first episode of 'Achetypes' on Tuesday. (Spotify )

"I’ve never lost touch with that reality, and in the last few years, my desire to do something about it has grown," said the former American actress. "My 11-year-old voice has also gotten a little more confident – maybe a little louder."

During her conversation with Williams, 40, Markle described how ambition has become a "dirty, dirty word when it comes to women."

"I don’t remember ever personally feeling the negative connotation behind the word ‘ambitious’ until I started dating my now husband," Markle explained. "And apparently ambition is… a terrible, terrible thing for a woman that is – according to some. So, since I’ve felt the negativity behind it, it’s really hard to un-feel it. I can’t unsee it, either, in the millions of girls and women who make themselves smaller – so much smaller – on a regular basis."

At one point, Prince Harry makes a brief, surprise appearance to say hi to Williams.

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Serena Williams, seen here during Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's royal wedding in 2018, was the first celebrity guest for ‘Archetypes'. (Photo by Owen Humphreys - WPA Pool/Getty Images)

"I like what you’ve done with your hair!" the British royal exclaimed. "That’s a great vibe."

Markle also recalled her royal tour of South Africa with her husband and their firstborn Archie, which took place in 2019.

"Archie was what, four and a half months old," said the former "Suits" star. "And the moment we landed, we had to drop him off at this housing unit that they had had us staying in. He was going to get ready to go down for his nap. We immediately went to an official engagement in this township called Nyanga, and there was this moment where I'm standing on a tree stump, and I'm giving this speech to women and girls, and we finish the engagement, we get in the car, and they say there's been a fire at the residence. What? There's been a fire in the baby's room. What?"

"And so we're in the car," she shared. "We had just landed, what, an hour or two hours before racing back? We get back our amazing nanny, Lauren, who we'd had all the way until, um. In Canada here. Lauren in floods of tears. She was supposed to put Archie down for his nap, and she just said, ‘You know what? Let me just go get a snack downstairs.’ And she was from Zimbabwe, and we loved that she would always tie him on her, her back with a mud cloth, and her instinct was like, ‘Let me just bring him with me before I put him down.' In that amount of time that she went downstairs."

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Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and their baby son Archie Mountbatten-Windsor at a meeting with Archbishop Desmond Tutu at the Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation during their royal tour of South Africa on September 25, 2019, in Cape Town, South Africa. (Photo by Toby Melville - Pool/Getty Images)

"The heater in the nursery caught on fire," she continued. "There was no smoke detector. Someone happened to just smell smoke down the hallway went in, fire extinguished. He was supposed to be sleeping in there. And we came back. And of course, as a mother, you go, ‘Oh, my God, what?’ Everyone's in tears, everyone's shaken. And what do we have to do? Go out and do another official engagement? I said, 'This doesn't make any sense...' I was like, 'Can you just tell people what happened?'

"And so much, I think, optically. The focus ends up being on how it looks instead of how it feels. And part of the humanizing and the breaking through of these labels and these archetypes and these boxes that we’re put into is having some understanding on the human moments behind the scenes that people might not have any awareness of and to give each other a break. Because we did – we had to leave our baby. And even though we were being moved to another place afterwards, we still had to leave him and go do another official engagement."

A press release sent to Fox News Digital revealed that next week’s episode will feature Mariah Carey.

In 2020, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced a "multi-year partnership" between Spotify and their production company Archewell Audio.

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Next week's episode of ‘Archetypes’ will feature Mariah Carey, a press release sent to Fox News Digital revealed. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

According to an audio teaser released in March, the series aims to "investigate the labels that try to hold women back."

"I'll have conversations with women who know all too well how these typecasts shape our narratives," she shared at the time. "And I'll talk to historians to understand how we even got here in the first place."

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex stepped back as senior members of the royal family in 2020. They now reside in California with their two children.