Meghan Had 'No Alternative but To Continue' After Archie Fire—Commentator

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry had "no alternative" but to continue royal engagements after a fire in Archie's room and would have caused disappointment if they canceled, a royal commentator said.

The Duchess of Sussex told her Archetypes Spotify podcast "we had to leave our baby" after a heater caught fire in the room he was supposed to be sleeping in.

The family were on the first day of their September 2019 tour of South Africa when they learnt of the near miss at the housing unit where they were staying and had to continue with royal engagements, the duchess said.

Royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams told the Daily Mail: "Since, fortunately, no one had been hurt and although it must have been highly upsetting, there was surely no alternative but to continue with the itinerary of their tour. It would have been so disappointing to so many if they had not."

During an interview with Serena Williams, Meghan told Archetypes: "The heater in the nursery caught on fire. 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.

"And we came back. And of course, as a mother, you go, 'Oh, my God, what?' Everyone's in tears, everyone's shaken. And what do we have to do? Go out and do another official engagement?

"I said, 'This doesn't make any sense.' I was like, 'can you just tell people what happened?' And so much, I think, optically, the focus ends up being on how it looks instead of how it feels."

Meghan and Harry started their tour with a visit to Nyanga township before subsequently learning about the fire.

The following job was to District 6 Museum and District Six Homecoming Centre, in Cape Town, where they learned about residents forcibly removed during the Apartheid era.

Fitzwilliams said: "Meghan and Harry's visit to District Six, where they saw the museum which honored those who were forcibly removed by the Government in 1966 and went on an impromptu walkabout, was considered a success at the time.

"They met some of those who were affected by the removal policy and their visit was an important event on their official tour to South Africa.

"It was undoubtedly scary for them when they heard that Archie had been at risk in a fire. Most fortunately he had not been in the room at the time, his nanny had taken him with her when she left to have a snack."

More than a week later, on October 2, Meghan and Harry gave an interview to Tom Bradby, a friend of theirs, about their struggles with life in the public eye for his documentary Harry & Meghan: An African Journey.

It was the moment Harry first publicly acknowledged the rift with Prince William and also when Meghan famously acknowledged she was not okay.

Fitzwilliams said: "It was in Tom Bradby's subsequent ITV documentary of what had been considered a highly successful tour that the world learnt how deeply unhappy the Sussexes were with royal life."

The Court Circular recorded their accommodation on their first day as being at the British High Commissioner's residence at the time.

Omid Scobie, author of Finding Freedom, described how royal aides had played down the drama, suggesting a heater had begun smoking but not caught ablaze, in his column for Yahoo! News.

He wrote: "Of course, it wouldn't be a conversation about the Sussexes without mentioning the palace's 'fears.'

"I'm told Buckingham Palace aides were most definitely not keeping calm, nor carrying on after the show's premiere on Tuesday, worried about what else might be shared over the next 12 weeks.

"Two aides have already pushed back on Meghan's 'precise recollection' of events in South Africa—one told a tabloid that it was a smoking heater, not a fire (does it matter?) and another claimed it is 'unfair' to share such stories when the Royal Household cannot comment."

Newsweek approached the Sussexes for comment.