Meghan Markle Recalls Leaving Archie After A Fire Broke Out To Continue Royal Tour

(FILES) In this file photo Meghan, Duchess of Sussex holds her baby son Archie as she and Britain's Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex meet Archbishop Desmond Tutu and his wife Leah at the Tutu foundation in Cape Town. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle announced on June 6, 2021 the birth of their daughter Lilibet Diana, who was born in California after a year of turmoil in Britain's royal family. POOL / HENK KRUGER

KEY POINTS

Meghan Markle talked about the fire that broke out in Archie's room during their South Africa royal tour in 2019 in her podcast debut
Markle said the heater in the nursery where Archie was supposed to sleep caught fire, and there was no smoke detector
The Duchess of Sussex revealed they still attended their next engagement afterward, but Serena Williams said she would have said no

Meghan Markle recounted a scary incident when she had to prioritize her royal duties over her son just hours after a fire broke out in his room.

During the premiere episode of Markle's Spotify podcast "Archetypes," released Tuesday, she recounted an incident during her 2019 trip to South Africa, Angola and Malawi with her husband Prince Harry and son Archie, who was only 4 months old at the time.

"The moment we landed, we had to drop him off at this housing unit that they had had us staying in," Markle was quoted by Us Weekly as saying. "He was going to get ready to go down for his nap"

Markle said she and her husband immediately left for an official engagement, but they received frightening news after it was over.

"We finish the engagement, we get in the car, and they say there's been a fire at the residence," Markle continued. "There's been a fire in the baby's room."

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex raced back to their residence, where their nanny Lauren was waiting with Archie, now 3. Fortunately, their son hadn't been in the nursery because Lauren took him with her when she went downstairs to get a snack.

"The heater in the nursery caught on fire," Markle said. "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."

Despite what had happened, Prince Harry and Markle went on and attended their other engagement on the same day. Markle said as a mom, she was asking herself, "Oh, my God, what?" She didn't know what to do next, whether she would go on their next official engagement because "this doesn't make sense."

The royal couple still went on with their engagement. When her first podcast guest Serena Williams asked her how she was able to leave Archie at home after the harrowing experience, Markle said she wanted to bring him along, but they were not allowed.

"I was like, 'Can you just tell people what happened?'" Meghan recalled. "The focus ends up being on how it looks instead of how it feels. ... And even though we were being moved into another place afterward, we still had to leave him and go do another official engagement."

The tennis champion replied, "I couldn't have done that. I would have said, 'Uh-uh.'"