One of the famous faces in the trailer for Meghan Markle’s forthcoming Netflix show With Love, Meghan was none other than Mindy Kaling.
Kaling, 45 — who previously compared herself to the Duchess of Sussex while shooting a cooking video — joined Meghan, 43, in the trailer, released Jan. 2. “This is probably one of the most glamorous moments of my life,” Kaling said in a clip from the show, which will drop on Netflix on Jan. 15.
The friendship between the two women dates back years, as Kaling was a guest on Meghan’s Spotify podcast Archetypes, which ran in 2022. As recently as October, Kaling shared a video of herself cooking soup on Instagram, saying, “So this is exciting,” and then quipping, “I’m freaking Meghan Markle over here.” (With Love, Meghan celebrates cooking, gardening and entertaining, among other pursuits.)
The two bonded over the experience of being “latchkey kids” in the Archetypes episode Kaling appeared on, titled “The Stigma of the Singleton.” They also bonded over not always feeling beautiful, with Meghan describing herself as an “ugly duckling” in high school.
“Look, maybe not conventional beauty as it … now, maybe that would be seen as beautiful, but massive frizzy curly hair and a huge gap in my teeth,” Meghan said on the show. “I was the smart one. Forever and ever and ever and ever. And, and then, [I] just sort of grew up.”
The Duchess of Sussex later drove the point home, saying, “I was the smart one, not the pretty one.”
For her part, Kaling shared that she never felt attractive while growing up as a “dark-skinned Indian girl, overweight, glasses, in lily-white suburbs of Boston.”
“So I went through high school. No boyfriends. Heard about my friends kissing, falling in love, losing their virginity. College. Same. Nothing. Always a spectator. Watching things,” Kaling continued. “By the way, I learned a lot from that. I learned how to, you know, so many of my shows right now are about young women and longing and feeling horny and feeling rejected. And I’ve learned a lot from that.”
The vulnerable conversation also included an anecdote from Meghan about life in high school: “I never had anyone to sit with at lunch,” she said. “I, I was always a little bit of a loner and really shy and didn’t know where I fit in. And, and so I just became, I was like, okay, well then I’ll become the president of the Multicultural Club and the president of sophomore class and the president of this and French club. And, and by doing that, I had meetings at lunchtime. So I didn’t have to worry about who I would sit with or what I would do because I was always so busy.”
To this story, Kaling replied, “That makes me very emotional. And that’s, I’m happy that people know that because I think people see you and they’re like, oh, my gosh, like the wedding, the couture fittings for that and this and that. And I think that I certainly didn’t know that about you. And it’s nice to know.”
As the episode aired, Kaling wrote on Instagram that she “Loved sitting down with Meghan on her new podcast, #Archetypes.”
Kaling admitted in the opening segment of the Archetypes episode “I don’t do podcasts” and was “really nervous” about appearing on the show. “I want to be really honest when I speak and, sometimes when you’re honest, it can piss people off,” she said.
Meghan said of Kaling, “I happen to think Mindy Kaling’s honesty is what makes her and her work so powerful,” adding she was “candid, genuine and really funny.”
Last April, Kaling had a run-in with Meghan’s husband Prince Harry at the BetterUp Summit in San Francisco, where they were both speakers. Kaling later posted a photo of the two of them, cheekily captioning it “Met my friend’s husband at a work event. Seemed pretty cool.”
Referring to Harry’s 2023 memoir Spare, she added, “Said he wrote a book. Gonna go check it out!”
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That same month, Kaling became one of the coveted 50 people who received a jar of Meghan’s strawberry jam from her forthcoming lifestyle brand American Riviera Orchard, receiving jar No. 19 of the fruit spread. “Obsessed,” Kaling wrote of the treat, tagging American Riviera Orchard’s Instagram page.
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