Duchess Meghan announces new podcast 'Confessions of a Female Founder'

Move over King Charles, another royal needs room for her podcast equipment.

Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, will launch a new audio series next month, the actress-turned-royal-turned-lifestyle guru revealed Monday.

The show, entitled "Confessions of a Female Founder," will premiere April 8 with Lemonada Media − a podcast empire also home to "Wiser Than Me," Julia Louis Dreyfus' popular interview series. Lemonada also distributed "Archetypes," Meghan's first podcast venture, which ran for eight episodes in 2022, originally on Spotify.

USA TODAY has reached out to Meghan's reps for comment.

The show is expected to highlight conversations between Meghan, a female founder herself, and other women in business as they discuss their struggles and triumphs on the way to success. It comes as she gears up for the launch of As Ever, a lifestyle brand and product line expected to be fully available some time in March.

"I'm so proud of what we're creating, and the candid conversations that I'm able to have with other female founders as we unpack the twists and turns of building a business," Meghan said in a release announcing the show. "Through my friendships and relationships, we're able to dive into the type of insights that everyone wants to know as they’re building a business, and that I'm able to tap into as I'm building my own business with As Ever."

Those twists and turns come from real-life experience. Meghan's journey to launch As Ever has been plagued with roadblocks, as the duchess ran into trademark issues and jabs from familiar celebrity critics.

"I appreciate everyone who gave me the grace to make mistakes and figure it out and also to be forgiving with myself through that," she told People in an interview earlier this month. "It's a learning curve."

A double-pronged return to public life, the duchess also released a show on Netflix earlier this month, "With Love, Meghan," which saw her doling out cooking and hosting tips.

The show was met with mixed reactions as a bevy of critics ripped it to shreds, chiding Meghan for being unrelatable and failing to be as authentic or revelatory as they had hoped. Others, however, heralded the show as an aspirational escape, and hit back at detractors for continuing to hound a woman who has been open about the effects of public bullying.

"We can be hypercritical, and we need to look at, 'What is that doing to us, when we feel such a high level of judgment of other people?'" psychotherapist Stephanie Sarkis previously told USA TODAY. "It seems that whatever (Meghan) does, she's going to be under a microscope."

For now, Meghan's approach appears to be: If you're under the microscope, you might as well make the best of it. With Season 2 of "With Love, Meghan" already announced and both the podcast and brand launches impending, the duchess doesn't appear to be going anywhere.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Meghan Markle announces new podcast 'Confessions of a Female Founder'