Gloria Steinem over the weekend praised Meghan Markle’s efforts to get out the vote, nearly a month after they met for a backyard conversation that focused on voter suppression.
The feminist activist and icon extolled the Duchess of Sussex as “smart, authentic, funny, political” during a Sunday conversation with Access Hollywood about Steinem’s forthcoming biographical film, “The Glorias.”
“She came home to vote,” the activist said of Meghan’s move earlier this year back to California, where the duchess grew up.
Steinem then went into detail about a meeting the two had earlier this summer, saying they contacted potential U.S. voters together at Steinem’s home.
“The first thing we did ― and why she came to see me ― we sat at the dining room table where I am right now and we cold-called voters,” Steinem said. “Said, ‘Hello I’m Meg’ and ‘Hello I’m Gloria’ and ‘Are you going to vote?’ That was her initiative.”
Steinem also shot down a stereotype that Meghan has faced since marrying Prince Harry, and thereby marrying into the British royal family.
“She has a kind of stereotype hanging over her head ― which is ‘princess,’” the activist told Access Hollywood. “The whole idea of ‘princess,’ you know, is a problem. I mean, we had a whole revolution to get rid of royalty.”
Since Harry and Meghan’s historic step back as working members of the royal family and their subsequent move to California, the duchess has repeatedly encouraged people to show up for the U.S. presidential election in November.
“We all know what’s at stake this year,” she said in a virtual hangout organized by the nonprofits the United State of Women and When We All Vote in August.
“When I think about voting and why this is so exceptionally important for all of us, I would frame it as, ‘We vote to honor those who came before us and to protect who will come after us,’” the duchess said at the time. “Because that’s what community is all about. And that is specifically what this election is all about.”
Subscribe to HuffPost’s Watching the Royals newsletter for all things Windsor (and beyond).