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Singer Kelly Rowland has described her first meeting with Meghan Markle at a Beyoncé concert in Los Angeles last month.
Rowland and Meghan met on September 4 at the SoFi Stadium, where they were photographed with Scandal actress Kerry Washington.
Speaking to Hello!, the former Destiny's Child singer said it was the "first time" she had met the duchess, adding that Meghan had a regal bearing independent from her marriage to Prince Harry.
"It was my first time meeting her. It was just nice being there with other great women and being able to just simply talk," she said.
"I don't know what people expect to see or to know, but she just felt very cool and very down to earth. She is very warm … She was royal before she was in that family.
"I think that we are royalty before anything. And we have to hold ourselves in that regard as humans, as people."
Meghan attended the Renaissance tour with her husband Harry and her mother, Doria Ragland.
Fan-shot footage of the couple dancing and singing along quickly went viral.
Although Meghan was not photographed with Beyoncé on the evening of the concert, the pair have met publicly in the past and the duchess revealed she was on texting terms with the superstar in her 2022 docuseries.
Meghan and Beyoncé are reported to have met for the first time at the 2019 premiere of Disney's live-action remake of The Lion King. The singer voiced the character of Nala and performed an original song for the film's soundtrack.
Five months before that meeting, Beyoncé and her husband Jay Z appeared to pay tribute to Meghan during an acceptance video for the Brit music awards. In February 2019 the couple posed in front of a mock-oil portrait of the duchess wearing a tiara as they read their speech.
In a widely shared scene from their 2022 Netflix docuseries Harry & Meghan, Meghan excitedly told Harry that Beyoncé had texted her "just checking in."
"I still can't believe she knows who I am," she told her husband. "She said she wants me to feel safe and protected, she admires and respects my bravery and vulnerability and thinks I was selected to break generational curses that need to be healed."
Meghan was also reportedly spotted at the SoFi Stadium in August for Taylor Swift's Eras tour while her husband attended a charity polo match in Singapore.
Newsweek approached representatives of the Duchess of Sussex via email for comment.
James Crawford-Smith is Newsweek's royal reporter, based in London. You can find him on X (formerly Twitter) at @jrcrawfordsmith and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.
Do you have a question about King Charles III, William and Kate, Meghan and Harry, or their family that you would like our experienced royal correspondents to answer? Email royals@newsweek.com. We'd love to hear from you.
About the writer
James Crawford-Smith is a Newsweek Royal Reporter, based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on the British royal family ... Read more