Last Monday, Meghan Markle’s long-awaited Spotify podcast debuted and quickly became the platform’s top-performing property.

The episode may have received a boost from a controversy involving the British royal family, as Meghan made the surprising claim that her son Archie was nearly injured in a house fire, and she was forced to continue working despite her obvious drama.

Now, just one week later, Meghan is once again stirring the pot, this time focusing her attention on the notorious UK tabloid media.

In a lengthy, wide-ranging interview with The Cut, Meghan alleged that members of the British press used racial slurs in reference to her children.

Meghan explained that she was discouraged from sharing pictures of her kids on social media, and was instead expected to offer them to the Royal Rota, the press pool that covers the Windsor clan.

“There’s literally a structure,” Meghan told The Cut.

“Why would I give the very people that are calling my children the N-word a photo of my child before I can share it with the people that love my child?” she asked.

“You tell me how that makes sense and then I’ll play that game.”

Meghan went on to explain that she and Harry were invited to join Prince William and Kate Middleton’s @KensingtonRoyal Instagram account but had little say in what sort of content would be posted to the page.

According to Meghan, she and Harry were expected to continue playing “the exchange game” in which they would provide exclusive photos to the press in exchange for favorable coverage.

“If you want to release photos of your child, as a member of the family, you first have to give them to the Royal Rota,” she said.

Meghan and Harry opted out of that arrangement and started their own Instagram account, @SussexRoyal, where they posted photos of their children and other images from their private lives.

The account was launched just months ahead of Archie’s birth.

Looking back, it seems that that move signaled the beginning of the end of Meghan and Harry’s efforts to stay on as functioning cogs in the royal machine.

These days, “Meghan of Montecito,” as she’s referred to in The Cut is living a very different life in one of SoCal’s toniest suburbs.

The Sussexes attend all of the usual play dates and birthday parties, but Meghan admits that they encounter the occasional awkward moment.

“I was in a bouncy castle, and I saw this 1-year-old inside. I was like, ‘Where’s your mom?’ And this mom on the outside goes, ‘Oh, hi! I’m here. I wasn’t sure if I should come in.,'” she recalled of one recent kid-friendly gathering.

“I was like, ‘Do you need your child? Of course you can come in.'”

At home, Meghan says, she and Harry are focused on raising their two children to demonstrate kindness and respect toward others at all times.

“We always tell him: ‘Manners make the man. Manners, manners, manners, manners, manners,’” Meghan said of Archie, noting that she and Harry are working instill basic etiquette, including the idea that salt and pepper should always be passed together.

“You never move one without the other. That’s me and Harry. We’re like salt and pepper. We always move together,” the Duchess explained.

And no doubt the Sussexes are living a life that’s much richer in texture and flavor than they ever would have known if they had continued to play by the rules.

Meghan Markle Blasts British Media: They Called My Children the N-Word was originally published on The Hollywood Gossip .