The Duke and Duchess of Sussex released a Spotify podcast special on Tuesday, and some of their first guests were notable Georgians.
Stacey Abrams and Tyler Perry, as well as former part-time resident Elton John, were invited to record their thoughts on 2020 and the coronavirus pandemic.
Harry and Meghan brought together “some people who inspire us, people we admire,” and got their thoughts on what they learned during this difficult year.
“As we come to the end of this year, and look to the future … let’s hold onto the lessons we’ve learned about how important it is to take care of one another and how meaningful our connections are, even when they’re physically impossible,” Harry says at the beginning of the podcast.
Media mogul Perry said he handled 2020 “one day at a time, with a lot of prayer.”
“The lowest moment came right before Thanksgiving. We were feeding 5,000 families here at the studio, and I got in the car and drove around to see the line. And I realized 5,000 was not enough, the need was so great. There were thousands more cars than gifts and groceries that we had. To see people hungry and starving, and children in the cars with their parents, and people sleeping all night just to get groceries was heartbreaking on so many levels,” he said. “An optometrist says 20/20 is about vision, you know, eyesight, so I think it really opened our eyes to what was going on all around us, to humanity and to the world.”
For Abrams, 2020 tested her love for Georgia. “I love the state of Georgia, and this year was a year when that love was tested. Where the darkest moments — like the murders of Ahmaud Arbery of Glynn County and Rayshard Brooks of Atlanta — they were met with silence and sometimes with anger. But they were also met with the persistence of young voices who were in the streets demanding change. But they also demanded change at the ballot box. That’s something I’d always hoped for, for Georgia, but to know that it was real, to see it in action, was just transformative.”
Music icon John was in the middle of a tour when COVID started.
“We came back to England in May,” he shared. “And It was very strange, because we’d been going full pelt and then all of a sudden we ground to a halt.”
Because of his age (73) and being a diabetic, the music icon says he has seen only his immediate family since May. He has tried to maintain a connection with the rest of his family through phone calls and Zoom.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have released the first podcast through their multiyear deal between Spotify and Archewell Audio, the couple’s newly created podcast studio. Their first full podcast series is expected to be released in in 2021.
You can listen to the full podcast below. Be sure to stick around for a cameo from a certain toddler for whom Archewell Audio is named.
