Meghan Markle Called Her High School Yearbook Quote “Prophetic”

If you know anything about Meghan Markle, aka the Duchess of Sussex, you know she’s overcome a barrage of obstacles to find her voice, and take control over her own narrative. In an interview with Variety magazine released on Oct. 19, Markle talked about about her journey, from her Hollywood career to Buckingham Palace, and everything that came between. But if you were ever an overachieving, aspirational teen *cough*, there’s one bit that might stand out to you — the part where she shared her high school yearbook quote. Honestly, it’s kind of perfect.

“I saw my picture in the yearbook that a friend sent me the other day,” Markle told Variety. “For your senior-year portrait, you had to choose a quote to accompany the picture. At 17, I chose Eleanor Roosevelt saying, ‘women are like tea bags, they don’t realize how strong they are until they’re in hot water,’” she added. “I don’t think I’m a soothsayer, but there is something a little prophetic about that.”

The now-Duchess of Sussex must be some kind of time traveler or something, because it’s hard to imagine how a teenage Markle somehow knew how significant that quote would be in her life as an adult. Someone needs to check if she’s got a license to drive a time-traveling DeLorean ASAP.

After separating from the royal family and moving to California, both Markle and her husband, Duke of Sussex Prince Harry, revealed their struggles in a candid March 7, 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey. In that interview, Markle and her husband talked about how they were forced to bear a barrage of tabloid attacks (many of which included racist subtext) without, they said, much support from the royal family.

In fact, the couple claimed that one member of the royal family spoke to Harry while Markle was pregnant with their son, Archie, with “concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he was born.” In a public statement following the interview, the royal family said, “while some recollections may vary, they are taken very seriously and will be addressed by the family privately.” After their experiences, the couple decided to distance themselves from the royal family, announcing in January 2020 that they would step down as senior members of the royal family. Later that year, the couple moved to California to pursue interests outside of the United Kingdom.

Since then, Markle and Prince Harry have begun working on several new projects under their non-profit organization, the Archewell Foundation. Among them are Markle’s podcast, Archetypes, which explores stereotypes and judgements about women via interviews and discussions with other high-profile women.

It seems clear that now that Markle’s experienced some hot water, she intends to find her own voice — and help other women discover theirs in the process. “Find someone who believes in you,” she told Variety, referring to her experience with finding a strong role model as a woman. “The power of sisterhood and female support can never be underestimated.”