"I’m not trying to be cagey." The 8 biggest takeaways from Meghan Markle's bizarre new profile.

Meghan Markle is ready to talk, or so she says.

The actress and Duchess/former Duchess (?) is in the midst of promoting her new podcast, Archetypes, and this week, appeared on the cover of American magazine, The Cut's Fall Fashion issue.

"Meghan of Montecito: She’s left the Firm behind. Harry’s found a polo team in Santa Barbara. The kids are doing great. Now she’s ready for her next act," the headline reads.

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We spent the morning devouring the profile - it's long, and full of never-before-told stories, or so we thought it would be...

Here are eight things we learned from Meghan Markle's The Cut interview.

1. Meghan knows she's free to talk but... won't.

Throughout the interview, Meghan teases us - suggesting she'll spill new information about the Firm, what actually happened, her life now, whatever - before reconsidering and shutting down.

It starts with social media.

At the beginning of the interview, Meghan declares she has big news; a 'secret': "I'm getting back on... Instagram," she tells profiler Allison P. Davis.

And it is big news, in a way - the Suits actress gave up her personal account in 2017 when she and Prince Harry got engaged. But it's a statement she later withdrew, Davis writes.

"Later, Meghan would relay she was no longer sure she would actually return to Instagram."

Yep, anticlimactic. 

The Duchess/former Duchess does it again when talking about how she and Prince Harry weren't allowed to be working royals and make their own money, despite other royals doing just that.

When Davis asks her why she thinks that is, the 41-year-old replies: "Why do you think that is?"

Then she does it again, when proclaiming, "I’m, like, so excited to talk," but no, she doesn't.

FFS, Meghan.

2. But when she does talk, she thinks it through at length, first.

Davis notes Meghan has been very well media trained - not only while working as an actress but again when she entered the royal family. 

For that reason, she carefully crafts everything she says.

"[She] sometimes converses like she has a tiny Bachelor producer in her brain directing what she says (at one point in our conversation, instead of answering a question, she will suggest how I might transcribe the noises she’s making: 'She’s making these guttural sounds, and I can’t quite articulate what it is she’s feeling in that moment because she has no word for it; she’s just moaning')," Davis writes.

Explains her shutting down earlier.

Should I expose a 1200-year-old institution? Probs not.

3. She and Harry weren't going to buy their house 'cause they couldn't afford it.

Not surprisingly, there are some things the actress says that are quite... out of touch. Like when she discusses purchasing their $21 million AUD Montecito home.

"We were looking in this area and this house kept popping up online in searches," Meghan recalls.

"We didn’t have jobs, so we just were not going to come and see this house."

She and Prince Harry later toured the house (and now have the financial means with their multi-million dollar Spotify and Netflix deals), and fell in love.

"We have to get this house," Meghan says before explaining they hadn't even seen inside before putting in an offer. "We did everything we could to get this house."

"Because you walk in and go... joy. And exhale. And calm. It’s healing. You feel free," she adds.

4. She and Archie prepare kits for the homeless.

Further on, Meghan brings Davis to pick up three-year-old Archie from school. On their way home, she offers a homeless man a backpack she casually has in the boot of her car.

"At a stoplight, [Meghan] reaches into the trunk and produces a brand-new black backpack and hands it to her security detail to give to an unhoused man on the corner," Davis writes. 

"They are teaching Archie that some people live in big houses, some in small, and that some are in between homes."

"They made kits to pass out with water and peanut-butter crackers and granola bars," she adds.

As you do.

5. She compares her and Harry to both salt and pepper shakers and... palm trees. 

Of course, Meghan has to mention her Prince Harry, or "H" as she calls him in her sweet (sorry, cringey) anecdotes. 

"One of the first things my husband saw when we [viewed the Montecito house] was those two palm trees," she tells Davis. 

"See how they’re connected at the bottom? He goes, 'My love, it’s us.' And now every day when Archie goes by us, he says, 'Hi, Momma. Hi, Papa.'"

I'm sorry, does he really?

Then there was her salt and pepper story.

"Meghan launches into a little story. Right now, they are trying to teach Archie his manners. ('We always tell him: 'Manners make the man. Manners, manners, manners, manners, manners.')" Davis writes.

"In one of those lessons, Meghan remembered something she’d learned at a young age from a friend's mum: Salt and pepper are always passed together. 

"She said, 'You never move one without the other.' That’s me and Harry. We’re like salt and pepper. We always move together."

Cute?

6. There are subtle digs throughout.

Harry appears at one point during their interview, and when he does, he discusses how he and Meghan work together on their projects - something his family aren't very good at.

"Most people that I know and many of my family, they aren’t able to work and live together," he says.

Davis notes Harry "enunciates family with a vocal eye roll".

Similarly, Meghan discusses the response to their Frogmore Cottage renovations and the fallout from that. 

"It was bittersweet, you know? Knowing none of it had to be this way," she says.

7. Harry and Charles.

On the topic of family, Davis discusses Meghan's relationship with her father, Thomas Markle.

She writes how the 41-year-old was close to her father but - as most people know - has been estranged from him since before her wedding (and that whole media circus).

Meghan tells Davis how "toxic tabloid culture" tore not one but two families apart.

"Harry said to me, 'I lost my dad in this process.' It doesn’t have to be the same for them as it was for me, but that’s his decision," she shares.

"I think forgiveness is really important. It takes a lot more energy to not forgive," she says. 

"But it takes a lot of effort to forgive. I’ve really made an active effort, especially knowing that I can say anything."

SEE! She hinted at talking again but... didn't.

8. Keeping Up With The... Mountbatten-Windsors? 

Remember how Meghan and Prince Harry signed a multi-million dollar deal with Netflix? Yep, the one that we've heard nothing more about?

Well, they addressed that during the interview.

As Davies writes, there are rumours about what they're actually producing for the streaming service.

"For example, an At Home With Meghan and Harry–type docuseries that reportedly has an attached director, Liz Garbus, and footage shot by teams of cameramen, who have been spotted following the couple around — are met with half-answers shrouded in winks, codes, and redirection."

Meghan suggests there might be something like that in the works.

"The piece of my life I haven’t been able to share, that people haven’t been able to see, is our love story," she says.

But, of course, she doesn't reveal too much.

"What’s so funny is I’m not trying to be cagey," she tells Davis. "I don’t read any press. So I don’t know what’s confirmed."

At the end of the interview, Meghan admits why she isn't speaking up.

"It’s interesting, I’ve never had to sign anything that restricts me from talking. I can talk about my whole experience and make a choice not to."

Why doesn’t she talk? Davies asks.

"Still healing," she responds.

You can read The Cut's full profile here. 

Feature image: Instagram/@thecut

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