Meghan Markle opens up for first time about terrifying fire involving son Archie

Meghan Markle has opened up for the firs time about the heart-stopping moment her son Archie was involved in a fire.

The former Suits actress, 41, explained the incident happened while she and Prince Harry were still senior members of the Royal Family.

She made the revelation to her friend Serena Williams in an interview on her new podcast Archetypes, where she said the incident took place on a Royal tour of South Africa.

Archie, now three, was just 'four and a half months old' at the time when she and Prince Harry left him with a nanny to carry out their first engagement of the tour.

They 'dropped him off at this housing unit that we were staying at and he was getting ready to go down for his nap'.

The couple went on to give a speech, before they returned to some terrifying news from their nanny, Lauren.

"There's been a fire at the residence," Meghan recalled being told. "There's been a fire in the baby's room.

"Our amazing nanny Lauren was in floods of tears. She was supposed to put Archie down for his nap and she just said, you know what, let me go and get a snack from downstairs." 

Alamy / PA Images

Lauren had thankfully taken Archie with her when she went to get a snack, so he was not in the room when the fire took place.

"In that amount of time that she went downstairs, the heater in the nursery caught on fire. There was no smoke detector, someone just happened to smell smoke down the hallway so they went in and the fire was extinguished. He was meant to be sleeping in there," Meghan said.

"Everyone's in tears, everyone's shaken. And what did we have to do? Go out and do another official engagement. And I said, 'This doesn't make any sense, can you just tell people what happened?"

Reacting to the story, tennis star Serena said: "I couldn't have done that."

While the couple went on to move to alternative accommodation after the fire, Harry and Meghan ultimately stepped own as senior members of the Royal Family in January 2020.

Spotify / Archetypes

The entire podcast is available to stream on Spotify and is titled The Misconception of Ambition with Serena Williams.

Its synopsis reads: "Meghan talks to the one and only Serena Williams about the double standard women face when they are labeled 'ambitious' and the ripple effects this has on other aspects of their lives.

"This groundbreaking premiere episode also features Dr. Laura Kray, a leading expert on gender in the workplace."