Meghan Markle exclusive: There really was a fire in Archie’s nursery, albeit a small one

A source close to the Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle has confirmed to The Citizen that there was indeed a fire in her son Archie’s nursery while she and Prince Harry were on a royal tour in South Africa.

#VoetsekMeghan hit number one on the Twitter trend list last week, as local tweeps expressed their outrage about the claims Meghan Markle made on her official visit to the country in September 2019.

According to reports, some do recall the incident in Cape Town, which took place on 23 September.

While they do not remember there actually being a fire, the heater was certainly smoking, and was unplugged and dealt with.

ALSO READ: ‘VoetsekMeghan’ trends as South Africans respond to Meghan Markle’s fire story

However, a source close to the family who spoke to The Citizen on the condition of anonymity has now confirmed that there was a fire at the official residence where the family was staying.

“The heater burnt. The house didn’t burn, the rooms didn’t burn. I didn’t see the fire itself, but I saw the heater when it came out of the room. The plastic was severely melted.”

The source said he cannot say whether little Archie was in danger or not when the fire broke out.

“I’m not sure if we came from Nyanga or Monwabisi… We had an event.

“We were driving in convoy and all of a sudden, the convoy with Meghan broke-away. We followed after… We weren’t sure what was going on. “

“The prince (Harry) was on his way to Kalk Bay for a thing with the navy.

“When we got to the house, the house-keeper called me and showed me the heater that was burnt and told me what had a happened and that the child was not in the room at the time the heater burnt, they smelt it, went up and saw the smoke,” said the source.

Meghan panicked

The source said Meghan Markle was scared and reacted like every mother would if their child was suspected of being in danger.

“When we stopped at the residence, I can tell you that she didn’t get out of the car like a lady that normally gets out. She bolted into the house.”

Fire not reported

The source said the fire was not reported.

“When we were outside, we discussed what we are going to do about this. It was a new heater that was just purchased and the consensus was ‘guys this is gonna look bad for us or for Cape Town, South Africa, or for whoever.’”

“The British Police guys actually told us ‘guys just leave it as is, don’t talk about this.’”

The source says the royals could no longer live in the official residence.

“What was significant is, we immediately moved out of that house. But the second place, where they went to, was not even five minutes away from the official residence where we were stationed and none of us were told where they were staying after the fire.”

Silence

The source says he was part of a small team looking after the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

“We decided we are not going to expose this thing. That’s why we kept quiet about it back then, because we knew we were going to get backlash.”

Markle related the incident about the fire while speaking to Serena Williams on her new podcast Archetypes.

The tennis professional was the first guest on Markle’s new podcast.

On Monday, #VoetsekBritishMedia was trending on Twitter.

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