In her new podcast, the Duchess of Sussex told tennis star Serena Williams how she was left “in tears” and “shaken” after a heater in her son’s room started to smoke during her visit in 2019. Archie, then four months old, was not in the room in the Cape Town residence when the heater issue occurred. Meghan said in the Spotify podcast that she was obliged to continue with official engagements despite her trauma. However, angry South Africans have taken to social media to dispute her claims, leading to the hashtag #VoetsekMeghan – an offensive term meaning ‘go away’ – trending on Twitter.Many were incensed by Meghan’s reference to her luxury accommodation in a Cape Town mansion as a “housing unit”.One Twitter user posted: “People like Meghan Markle making it seem like going to South Africa was the bravest thing she has done because SA is an uninhabitable place which almost took her son’s life. All the time she is lying and was coddled in a Cape Town mansion.” Another said: ‘I don’t care about the fire incident but the statement: coming to South Africa was the bravest thing she has done. Speaks volumes. As if she was coming to some apocalypse state or something. She should elaborate on what was brave about it, is it because is in Africa?”Another went further, warning Meghan to “never set foot here again”.During the podcast, Meghan said: “The moment we landed, we had to drop him off at this housing unit that they had had us staying in.“He was going to get ready to go down for his nap.“We immediately went to an official engagement in this township called Nyanga, and there was this moment where I’m standing on a tree stump and I’m giving this speech to women and girls, and we finish the engagement, we get in the car and they say there’s been a fire at the residence.”The Duchess of Sussex said Archie had not been harmed as he was not in the room thanks to his nanny Lauren, who had taken the tot downstairs with her for a snack. She continued: “There was no smoke detector. Someone happened to just smell smoke down the hallway went in, fire extinguished.“He was supposed to be sleeping in there.”The Duchess said she and Prince Harry were asked to carry on with their work while people were still “shaken” by the incident but it had become clear the baby had not been hurt.She recalled: “I said: This doesn’t make any sense. I was like: Can you just tell people what happened?”
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