Brooke Shields has revealed she interrupted Meghan Markle live on stage in front of thousands of people – because, she says, the Duchess of Sussex was being ‘too precious’ in her speech about gender equality.
The 60-year-old Hollywood actress shared the anecdote on the latest episode of India Hicks‘ podcast, which was released over the weekend.
Brooke was discussing the International Women’s Day panel in Austin, Texas, from March 2024, where she had been joined by Meghan on stage.
When the discussion began, and the former Suits star, 43, started answering Katie’s opening question, Brooke said the tone quickly became overly serious.
‘Katie asks the first question to Meghan and talks about how at a young age, she was already advocating for women, etcetera, etcetera,’ Brooke explained.
‘[Meghan] starts telling a story about how when she was 11… And she keeps saying, well, when I was 11, I saw this commercial and they were talking about washing dishes and only soap for washing dishes was for women.
‘And she said, ‘I didn’t think only women wash dishes. It wasn’t fair. So I wrote to the company. And when I was 11, I wrote my first letter and when I was 11…’ and she kept saying she was 11! She wrote to the company, they changed the text, they changed the commercial.’
At that point, Brooke said, she couldn’t resist breaking the tension in the room – and the earnestness of Meghan’s response.
Meghan Markle was ‘too precious’ and ‘serious’ as she told an anecdote on a panel for International Women’s Day last year (pictured), according to Brooke Shields
Hollywood actress Brooke, 60, said she felt she needed to make the tone of the conversation more ‘relaxed’
‘I go, “Excuse me, I’m so sorry. I’ve got to interrupt you there for one minute,”
‘I was trying not to be rude, but I wanted to be funny because it was so serious.
‘I just want to give everybody here a context as to how we’re different,’ Brooke told the audience. ‘I said, ‘Well, when I was 11, I was playing a prostitute.’
‘The place went insane. And then luckily, it was more relaxed after that.’
The comment was a reference to Brooke’s breakout role as a child star in the controversial 1978 film Pretty Baby, in which she played a child sex worker – a role that sparked debate at the time and has remained the subject of intense scrutiny in the decades since.
In Austin, the moment broke the ice, as the crowd broke out into laughter.
‘I was like, oh, I hope she doesn’t think I’m rude. I’m not being rude,’ Brooke added.
India – daughter of Lady Pamela Mountbatten, a lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth II, and the late interior designer David Hicks, agreed that lightening the serious mood Meghan created was the right thing to do. ‘I think it’s genius,’ she said.
Reflecting on the exchange, Brooke added: ‘It was just too precious. And I was like, they’re not going to want to sit here for 45 minutes and listen to anybody be precious or serious.’
Meghan had been sharing one of her favourite anecdotes – of when she wrote to Proctor & Gamble at the age of 11
Meghan was a speaker on the panel at the South by Southwest Conference (SXSW) in Austin,Texas in March last year
Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex, Katie Couric, Brooke Shields and Nancy Wang Yuen take part in the keynote ‘Breaking Barrier, Shaping Narratives: How Women Lead On and Off the Screen’
Despite the crowd’s response, Brooke acknowledged that the moment might not have gone down quite so well with Meghan herself.
‘This was in front of [thousands of people]. I mean, it was crazy,’ she said. ‘And then afterwards, she was kind of like, oh, okay. And I was like, let’s just have some fun with it.’
Brooke added: ‘I don’t know if you’ll have to cut this out.’
Meghan had been telling an anecdote she’s referred to on many occasions about fighting a ‘sexist’ Proctor & Gamble commercial when she was just 11 years old.
Aged 11, Meghan wrote to Procter & Gamble to object to sexism in a dish soap advert which included the line: ‘Mothers around America are fighting greasy pots and pans.’
She asked them to change the advert to ‘people all over America’ and the company amended the language.
She subsequently appeared in an interview on Nick News in 1993, saying she was ‘furious’ at the advert for P&G’s Ivory Clear.
Beaming with pride, Meghan had happily agreed to share the story with the crowd – having mentioned it at multiple events over the years.
The 60-year-old Hollywood actress shared the anecdote on the latest episode of India Hicks’ (pictured) podcast, which was released over the weekend
Meghan appeared on Nick News after lobbying the manufacturing company to change a TV ad for dishwasher liquid in 1993
‘I was 11 years old, about 11 years old, and I had seen a commercial on TV for a dishwashing liquid, and the boys in my class at the time… you know it said, ‘Women all over America are fighting greasy pots and pans,’ and the boys said, ‘Yeah that’s where women belong, in the kitchen,’ Meghan recalled.
‘And at 11, I just found that infuriating, and [so] I ended up writing lots of letters, I put pen to paper, and they ended up changing the commercial to ‘people all over America’.
‘It’s funny looking back at it now because it was before social media that had such a reach.
‘I was just an 11-year-old with a pen and paper, but it just goes to show that if you know there’s something wrong and you’re using your voice to advocate in the direction of what is right, that can really land and resonate, and make a huge change for a lot of people.
‘So, your voice is not small, it just needs to be heard.’
It’s one of Meghan’s go-to tales, which she has previously credited with starting her life’s ‘trajectory’ of speaking up against ‘inequality’.
The Duchess often uses the childhood tale in her speeches and interviews, despite some questions being raised about its validity.
Indeed, when Meghan tried to reference the letter her 11-year-old self wrote to P&G in her 2017 Vanity Fair cover, it was reportedly cut after it failed to pass the magazine’s fact-checking.
2015: Markle recalled the incident during a speech at the United Nations – once again to mark International Women’s Day
2019: Meghan once again discussed the exchange during a panel discussion hosted by King’s College London for the annual celebration of women
She referenced the notorious Procter & Gamble tale yet again in her ‘Afro women and power talk’ in August last year
‘I don’t think it is right for kids to grow up thinking that mom does everything,’ Markle told Nick News in 1993.
‘If you see something that you don’t like or offended by on television or any other place, write letters and send them to the right people and you can really make a difference, not just for yourself but for lots of other people.’
Young Meghan sent the letter to famed civil rights lawyer Gloria Allred, then-first lady Hillary Clinton, and Nick News anchor Linda Ellerbee.
After Ellerbee received the letter, she and a camera crew from her show went to meet Markle.
Meghan said she received letters of encouragement back from all three, including Clinton, and said it felt ‘amazing’ during her 2015 speech at the UN.
But the account was allegedly stripped out of a Vanity Fair cover story in 2017 after ‘fact checkers raised questions about its accuracy,’ a biography claimed in 2022 – as no evidence could be found of Meghan receiving a response from Clinton.
The anecdote was cut from the cover story ‘after consulting P&G and advertising historians,’ according to Tom Bower’s book Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the War Between the Windsors.
In an extract from the book printed in The Times, he added: ‘They could also find no evidence, as Meghan claimed, that she received a reply from [Hilary] Clinton.
‘Unknown to Kashner, Thomas Markle knew Clinton and P&G had not replied to Meghan. The success of her ‘campaign’ was fictitious, invented by an adoring father.
Meghan Markle left people baffled over the weekend after sharing her latest kitchen ‘hack’ in a previously unseen clip from her Netflix show, With Love, Meghan
It’s also unclear whether Meghan’s letter alone persuaded P&G to change the advert.
Nevertheless, it’s a story Meghan loves to tell – and was the first subject of her Archetypes podcast with Spotify, spending four minutes on the recollection before turning to her guest, Serena Williams.
Recalling the letter in 2018, she said: ‘Truth be told, at 11 I don’t think I even knew what sexism meant.’
She continued: ‘I just knew that something struck me internally that was telling me it was wrong.
‘And using that as my moral compass and moving through from the age of 11, at that age I was able to change this commercial.’
She added: ‘It really set up the trajectory for me to say, if there was a wrong, if there is a lack of justice, and there is an inequality, then someone needs to do something. And why not me?’
In 2015, she recalled the incident during a speech at the United Nations – again to mark International Women’s Day.
‘I remember feeling shocked and angry and also just feeling so hurt,’ Markle said in the speech.
‘It just wasn’t right and something needed to be done.’
The Duchess of Sussex, 43, took to her Instagram account on Friday to share the short video that ‘didn’t make it in’, which showed her cutting up a pineapple
She said at the time that her father, Thomas Markle, had inspired her to bring about change.
‘He encouraged me to write letters, so I did — to the most powerful people I could think of,’ Meghan shared.
And, once again in 2019, she discussed the exchange during a panel discussion, alongside musician Annie Lennox and former Prime Minister of Australia Julia Gillard, hosted by King’s College London for the annual celebration of women.
Meghan, who was pregnant with son Archie at the time, dished: ‘Truth be told, at 11 I don’t think I even knew what sexism meant. I just knew that something struck me internally that was telling me it was wrong, and I knew that it was wrong.
‘And using that as my moral compass and moving through from the age of 11, at that age I was able to change this commercial.’
She added: ‘It really set up the trajectory for me to say, if there was a wrong, if there is a lack of justice, and there is an inequality, then someone needs to do something. And why not me?’
Despite the disagreement between P&G and a young Meghan, any rift seemed to be put to bed in 2021, when Meghan and Harry’s Archewell Foundation joined forces with the US consumer goods giant.
Over the weekend, Meghan shared an extra scene from her Netflix show, With Love, Meghan, that ‘didn’t make it’ into the final edit.
In the video, filmed in a rented $8million mansion near her and Prince Harry‘s Montecito home, Meghan was joined by wellness therapist Randi Karin as she explained how to properly cut a pineapple.
Meghan said: ‘A trick that people do with pineapple instead of just cutting it. To make the perfect little bite, you follow the wedge.
‘Nature has given you all the cues on how to have a perfect taste of something.’
She then cut around the pattern on the outside of the pineapple, and used the skin to pull out a chunk of the fruit before taking a bite.
Karin then followed her lead, managing to perfect the hack, and said: ‘Oh, how fun is that!’
However, royal watchers were less convinced and thought Meghan was just stating the obvious – while others noted the ‘trick’ has been around for years and regularly circulates on social media platforms such as Facebook and Pinterest.
Meghan Markle had her new Netflix show ‘renewed for a second season’ just days after the first episodes were panned by critics and fans
She also revealed that season two of the show has finished filming and looks set to release this summer.
Meghan took the opportunity to tease ‘all the fun to come’ with her brand As Ever – which sold out earlier this year, and has yet to restock.
She said: ‘Great weekend to rewatch or catch up on the show as we gear up for Season 2 this summer and all the fun to come with As Ever.’
News of ‘With Love, Meghan’ being renewed for a second season came in March, shortly after the first eight episodes of series one released on Netflix.
Despite the show being largely panned by media outlets on both sides of the Atlantic, the controversy that continues to surround Meghan is said to be the reason TV bosses were convinced to renew.
The episodes feature Meghan inviting famous friends to a California estate where she shares cooking, gardening and hosting tips.
However, the series was slammed by reviewers as ‘gormless lifestyle filler’ with a ‘tangible desperation’ following its release.
Others said it shows the Duchess is ‘attempting to cling to fame by any means possible’, while another described how she was ‘joylessly filling kids’ party bags with seeds’.
Guardian TV writer Stuart Heritage said the series was ‘so pointless it might be the Sussexes’ last TV show’ and ‘might also be the final thing she makes for Netflix’.
The Telegraph gave the show just two stars. In a review, they said the series was an ‘exercise in narcissism, filled with extravagant brunches, celebrity pals and business plugs’.
