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People have been listening to and absorbing the Duchess of Sussex’s first Archetypes podcast episode, The Misconception of Ambition with Serena Williams. It was nice to listen to because I’m such a big Serena fan, and it was great to hear Serena and Meghan talking as friends about real sh-t, dealing with bias, being affected by racism and plain unfairness, and being moms. Serena actually told a story about how Olympia broke her wrist the night before Serena had to play a match at the French Open. That led to Meghan’s story about Archie and the fire in his nursery, and the larger point of “you don’t know what people are going through, so be kind.”

What’s also interesting about having Serena as the first guest is that Serena has dealt with a lot more than “being called ambitious.” Meghan raises that point, as does Serena. They both talk about the double-standards that have plagued Serena throughout her career, where she’s spoken about as someone “emotional,” “too aggressive,” having a “meltdown” or, as always, “angry.” Whereas male tennis players are called passionate, dedicated, tough, strong, etc for doing the exact same things. I keep waiting for a larger reckoning on how Serena has been treated throughout her career and the language that has been used about her, but it hasn’t really happened yet.

At one point in the pod, they’re talking about how Serena will play her last professional match(s), there’s a conversation about how Meghan and Serena are going to get a drink together after Serena’s final match. Meghan said, “Yeah, we’re going to have fun. We’ll make sure you get a good one.” Serena said: “To the bar– to the bar. That’s something to do afterwards. I’m just going out because I can never drink. Have a glass of Champagne. Maybe I’ll just do some twirls right on out of the stadium.” So… is Meghan headed to New York next week for Serena’s farewell? I think she might be.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Serena’s IG.