In her interview with Oprah Winfrey that aired Sunday night, Meghan Markle likened herself to Disney’s “Little Mermaid,” claiming that in a similar fashion to the cartoon character, she had been silenced but through the interview with Winfrey, she “got her voice back.”
As Buzzfeed News reported, Markle told Winfrey, “I was sitting in Nottingham Cottage and ‘The Little Mermaid’ came on. And who as an adult really watches ‘The Little Mermaid’? But it came on, and I was like, ‘Well, I’m just here all the time so may as well watch this.’ And I went, ‘Oh, my God, she falls in love with a prince, and because of that she has to lose her voice.’”
Winfrey, responded by murmuring, “Mmmm.”
Markle added, raising her finger, “But by the end, she gets her voice back.”
Winfrey repeated, “She gets her voice back. And this is what happened here. You felt like you got your voice back.”
“Yeah,” said Markle.
meghan comparing herself to the little mermaid as its a story about a woman who loses her voice but in the end she gets it back 🥺 #OprahMeghanHarry pic.twitter.com/a43OjGO6se
— freya (@lgbtpaulsen) March 8, 2021
In the animated Disney film “The Little Mermaid,” Ariel, the Little Mermaid, fascinated by the human world, watches Prince Eric’s birthday on a ship and falls in love with him. When a violent storm wrecks the ship, she saves him and brings him ashore, where she sings, leaving just as he awakens. Mesmerized by her voice, he vows to find her, while she asks the sea-witch Ursula to make her human, which she requires Ariel to give Ursula her voice and find a way to make Eric kiss her within three days, otherwise her voice will belong to Ursula forever and Ariel will remain a mermaid forever. With the help of her friends, she eventually regains her voice and wins the prince’s love.
Markle has not been silent about social issues. In November 2020, she used a personal essay in The New York Times about her July miscarriage as a platform from which to opine about George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and U.S. politics.
In September 2020 she stated:
If you look back at anything I’ve said, it’s really interesting, what ends up being inflammatory is people’s interpretation of it. But if you listen to what I actually say it’s not controversial. And actually, some of it is reactive to things that just haven’t happened, which is in some ways, I think you have to have a sense of humor about even though there is quite a bit of gravity and there could be a lot of danger in a misinterpretation of something that was never there to begin with. But that again is a byproduct of what is happening right now for all of us.
This is not the first time Disney has been associated with Markle. The Daily Wire noted that People Magazine reported that in 2019 Harry “had a brief conversation with Disney CEO Bob Iger” about Markle working with Disney. People reported:
“You know she does voiceovers,” Harry can be heard saying in a video of the encounter, as Iger replies, “Oh, really?” “Did you know that?” Harry says. “You seem surprised.” Gesturing towards Meghan, who was speaking with Beyonce and Jay-Z several feet away, Harry can be heard saying, “She’s really interested.” “Sure,” Iger replies, according to the video. “We’d love to try.”
In January 2020, Markle signed a deal with Disney to do voiceover work. Markle will do “voiceover in return for a donation to Elephants Without Borders, an organisation that helps to track and protect the animals from poaching,” The Times reported.