Brooke Shields’ Meghan Markle podcast comments spark debate—then disappear

It’s the podcast episode everyone’s talking about—but you can’t listen to it anymore! Just a week after its release, India Hicks, goddaughter of King Charles, has deleted an episode of her show featuring Brooke Shields, where the Hollywood icon gave some candid feedback about Meghan Markle’s storytelling style at a high-profile SXSW panel.


In the now-vanished episode, Shields recounted her experience sharing the stage with Meghan Markle and Katie Couric at the March 2024 SXSW event, “Breaking Barriers, Shaping Narratives: How Women Lead On and Off the Screen.” Shields described Markle’s retelling of her famous childhood letter-writing campaign against a sexist dish soap commercial as “too precious” and “serious,” suggesting the audience needed a lighter touch.



“She kept saying she was 11! She wrote to the company, they changed the text, they changed the commercial. It was just too precious, and I was like, they’re not going to want to sit here for 45 minutes and listen to anybody be precious or serious,” Shields said, according to The Independent. Sensing the room’s mood, Shields interrupted Markle mid-story with a humorous contrast: “When I was 11, I was playing a prostitute,” referencing her controversial role in 1978’s Pretty Baby. Shields said her quip “relaxed” the panel and “the place went insane.”


The podcast episode was quickly scrubbed from Hicks’ website, with the link now leading to a “page not found” message. The move has only fueled more chatter about the exchange and the ongoing fascination with Meghan’s public persona.


Despite the deleted episode, Markle continues her advocacy for social justice and gender equity through her Archewell Foundation and partnerships with organizations like Smart Works, proving that whether you find her “precious” or powerful, she’s not stepping out of the spotlight anytime soon.