Brooke Shields admitted in a recent podcast that she once interrupted Meghan Markle during a panel over a story that was “so serious,” and now the episode apparently has been deleted.
The actor, 60, made the admission while chatting with King Charles’ goddaughter India Hicks during an episode of the latter’s podcast, which was released earlier this month. The podcast is no longer visible on Hick’s website, multiple outlets reported.
During the episode, Shields reflected on a SXSW panel led by Katie Couric that she and Meghan participated in. The panel, “Breaking Barriers, Shaping Narratives: How Women Lead On and Off the Screen,” took place back in March 2024. (Watch video of the panel here and skip to about the 6:30 mark for the comments in question.)
But according to the “Mother of the Bride” star, her interaction with the Duchess of Sussex didn’t quite go according to plan.
Recalling that Markle told a story during the panel that involved her writing a letter “advocating for women” at the age of 11, Shields told Hicks that she found the “Suits” actor’s anecdote to be out of place and too “serious.”
“Katie asks the first question to Meghan and [she] talks about how at a young age, she was already advocating for women,” Shields began. “She starts talking and telling a story about how when she was 11 — and she keeps saying, ‘Well, when I was 11, I saw this commercial and they were talking about how washing dishes … was for women.’”
“And [Markle] said, ‘I didn’t think only women wash dishes. It wasn’t fair. So I wrote to the company,’” Shields continued. “She kept saying she was 11! She [wrote] some company, they changed the text, they changed the commercial.”
Shields claimed that she interrupted Markle’s story in an effort to uplift the mood of the panel.
“I go, ‘Excuse me, I’m so sorry, I’ve just got to interrupt you there for one minute,’” Shields recalled telling Markle. “I was trying not to be rude, but I wanted to be funny because it was so serious.”
Shields said she then cracked a joke to the audience, telling them, “I just want to give everybody here a context as to how we’re different. When I was 11, I was playing a prostitute.”
Her joke was in reference to her lead role in 1978′s “Pretty Baby” — a film based on a young girl who was sexually exploited by being forced into prostitution by her mother at the age of 12.
“The [venue] went insane and then luckily it was more relaxed after that,” Shields added.
The “That’s ’70s Show” alum told Hicks that at the time she hoped Markle didn’t consider her actions to be “rude.”
“I was like ‘I hope she doesn’t think I’m rude. I’m not being rude.’ It was just too precious, and I was like, [the audience is] not going to want to sit here for 45 minutes and listen to anybody be precious or serious,” Shields explained.
HuffPost has reached out to reps for Shields and Markle for comment.
Social media users on X, formerly Twitter, shared mixed reactions over the reportedly deleted clip online.
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“Brooke shields confessing that she interrupted Megan‘s ridiculous commercial story when she was 11 years old.. .. and adding her own version of what she did when she was 11 years old is probably the best thing I’ve heard [sic],” one user said.
“Charles’s goddaughter allowing Brooke Shields to disrespect Meghan, then posting it, just shows that the royal family never cared about protecting her,” someone else declared. “Charles should be ashamed of himself for letting his people think that disrespecting his daughter-in-law is normal.”
A separate user argued, “And if the Duchess of Sussex knew what Brooke Shields’s parents were forcing her to do, she would have written a letter to the studio advocating for her. This was such a trifling response to Meghan speaking on where her advocacy began.”
