Meghan Markle 'Suits' Co-Star Praises Her Own Racial Awareness: 'She Knew'

Meghan Markle has always been, and continues to be, mindful of her race, a former co-star on her hit TV legal drama Suits has claimed while appearing on an episode of the Touré Show podcast discussing his career.

Markle has spoken extensively about how race has played a dominant role in the way she has been viewed and discussed since she became publicly involved in a relationship with Britain's Prince Harry in 2016.

Both Meghan and Harry have called out the British tabloid press for the racist undertones of reporting about the duchess and also spoken about the hatred this can inspire on social media message boards.

One subject around her race—that Meghan has elaborated on in her recent podcast series Archetypes and Netflix docuseries—is how by being biracial, she has had a different firsthand experience of racial prejudice than most black women.

But, she felt she was only viewed as a "black woman" after she married into the British monarchy.

Broadcaster and content creator Touré raised the point of Meghan's race in a recent podcast discussion with actor Malcolm-Jamal Warner, first addressing how Warner and Meghan first met on the set of Suits.

"Did you work with Meghan Markle?" the show host asked, before adding: "What was that like?"

"It was cool. We didn't really have scenes together, so, I'd see her and she was really nice, really cool," Warner, who is best known for playing the role of Theo Huxtable on The Cosby Show, explained.

"You know, my best friend Chris, he's a stage manager, he used to stage manage Deal or No Deal and Meghan used to be on Deal or No Deal. He's had more interaction with her than I did. But she was always cool."

Meghan first joined the game show fronted by Howie Mandel as a briefcase model in 2006. Since then, the duchess has expressed that she views the experience in conflicting ways.

Though appreciative to have a job while she was auditioning for bigger acting roles, the royal has since said that the looks-based nature of the modelling gig helped her "understand what I would rather be doing."

"Let me ask you something," Touré addressed Warner after establishing his thoughts on Meghan, "did you know she was black?"

He continued: "I mean like, I'm like, yo, I've got black-dar, so we see it, but I can see where a lot of people be like 'I didn't know.'"

To this, Warner responded in the affirmative. "The great thing is that she knew," he said. "She knows."

On her experience growing up as a biracial woman in the U.S., Meghan explained in her Netflix docuseries Harry and Meghan that it was "very different to be a minority but not be treated as a minority right off the bat."

"I'd say now, people are very aware of my race because they made it such an issue when I went to the UK," she explained. "But before that, most people didn't treat me like a 'Black woman.' So that talk didn't have to happen for me."

When Meghan met Harry—on a 2016 blind date in London—she had been starring as the paralegal Rachel Zane on Suits for five years and by the time she left the show when her relationship with the prince became serious, she had been in seven seasons.

During her engagement interview with Harry in November 2017, she told the BBC: "I don't see it as giving anything up. I just see it as a change."

"I've been working on my show for seven years," she said. "So we're very very fortunate to be able to have that sort of longevity on a series. For me, once we hit the 100 episode marker, I thought, you know what, I have ticked this box and I feel really proud of the work I've done there and now it's time to work as a team with [Harry]."

Meghan remained close to her many co-stars with a number of them receiving invites to the royal wedding, including Abigail Spencer who played Dana Scott; Sarah Rafferty, who played Donna Paulson; and Gabriel Macht, who played Harvey Specter.

James Crawford-Smith is Newsweek's royal reporter based in London. You can find him on Twitter at @jrcrawfordsmith and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.

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