Ice Cube believes that Meghan Markle and Prince Harry should have "stuck it out" in the royal family in order to "make some changes" from the inside.
The legendary rapper was asked about a famous article in the Daily Mail that described the Duchess of Sussex as "(Almost) Straight Outta Compton."
The reference to the seminal album by Ice Cube's former group N.W.A came in November 2016, days after Meghan and Harry's relationship became public and a year after the movie Straight Outta Compton brought the rapper's story back to the fore.
Harry and Meghan have both condemned the Mail's coverage, with the prince describing it as racist and Meghan pointing out she has no connection to Compton.
Ice Cube told Good Morning Britain: "People have their opinions, that's fine, but there's some great people that come out of Compton. Some of them are better than the people that come out of Beverley Hills.
"Just because somebody say you come 'straight outta Compton' and it has a tone of 'you come out of the hood' or 'you come out of the ghetto'... there's great people that come out of those places.
"Maybe they were trying to crack a joke but at the end of the day the joke was on them. You can't let what other people say or think about you or affect you and how you think about yourself."
"It was a very off-color joke," he added.
The rapper's account echoes Meghan's own defence of Compton during her Archetypes podcast: "I'm like, I'm not from Compton. I've never lived in Compton. My mom doesn't live in Compton. But by the way, what's wrong with Compton? My girl Serena [Williams]'s from there."
However, his advice about not letting other people's comments "affect you" strikes a slightly different tone to some of Harry and Meghan's approach to dealing with the media.
Meghan sued The Mail on Sunday over a private letter she sent her father and initially included the "Straight Outta Compton" story as part of an argument she was entitled to more damages due to the presence of an agenda against her at the publisher's titles. She eventually won the case in 2021, though her argument about the agenda was ultimately removed.
Ice Cube was also asked more generally about Meghan and Harry's decision to quit the monarchy: "I think when you're in the house, you can make more changes to the house than when you're outside of the house.
"That's kind of my opinion. If they stuck it out, then they might have been able to make some changes."
Prince Harry described seeing the article in his memoir Spare: "Above all, I hadn't been ready for the racism. Both the dog-whistle racism and the glaring, vulgar, in-your-face racism.
"The Daily Mail took the lead. Its headline: 'Harry's girl is (almost) straight outta Compton.' Subhead: 'Gang-scarred home of her mother revealed—so will he be dropping in for tea?'"
A filing by Meghan's lawyers from her lawsuit against the MoS, seen by Newsweek, read: "The fact that the [Daily Mail Group] chose to stereotype this entire community as being 'plagued by crime and riddled with street gangs' and thereby suggest (in the first few days of her relationship being revealed) that [Meghan] came from a crime-ridden neighbourhood is completely untrue as well as intended to be divisive.
"[Meghan] will also refer to the fact that the article cites her aunt as living in "gang-afflicted Inglewood" in order to bolster this negative and damaging impression of where this (black) side of her family is said to come from.
"In fact, Ava Burrow (said to be "the actress' aunt") is not her Aunt or any blood relation at all, a fact which if correctly stated would have undermined the narrative which the Defendant was intended to convey."
The Mail on Sunday's lawyers said in their own filing at the time: "The article does not criticise [Meghan] in any way."
Jack Royston is chief royal correspondent for Newsweek, based in London. You can find him on Twitter at @jack_royston and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.
Do you have a question about King Charles III, William and Kate, Meghan and Harry, or their family that you would like our experienced royal correspondents to answer? Email royals@newsweek.com. We'd love to hear from you.
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Jack Royston is Newsweek's Chief Royal Correspondent based in London, U.K. He reports on the British royal family—including King Charles ... Read more
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