Ice Cube shares surprising advice for Meghan Markle amid royal drama

Rapper Ice Cube thinks that Meghan Markle would have made some important changes in the British monarchy had she stayed in the U.K. The Duchess of Sussex and Prince Harry left their royal duties in 2020 amid the ruthless attack from the British tabloids that penned what they claimed racist stories about her.

One of these stories came in November 2016, shortly after their relationship was made public. A headline from the Daily Mail described her as "almost straight outta Compton." The subhead read, "Gang-scarred home of her mother revealed - so will he be dropping by for tea?" It was a reference to the seminal album by Ice Cube's former group N.W.A. and to their movie "Straight Outta Compton" that came out in 2015.

Both Meghan Markle and Prince Harry have condemned the publication's coverage, with the duke describing it as racist and the duchess pointing out that she has no connection to Compton.

But Ice Cube has nothing against the association with Compton. He acknowledged that people have different opinions and that is fine. But he argued that "there's some great people that come out of Compton" and that "some of them are better than the people that come out of Beverly Hills."

He told "Good Morning Britain" in a recent interview, "Just because somebody say you come 'straight outta Compton' and it has a tone of 'you come out of the hood' or 'you come out of the ghetto'... there's great people that come out of those places."

The Duchess of Sussex echoed the rapper's sentiment in the debut episode of her "Archetypes" podcast on Spotify, released in August 2022. She addressed the headline during a conversation with her long-time friend and tennis champ Serena Williams, who grew up in Compton.

She said, "I'm not from Compton. I've never lived in Compton. My mom doesn't live in Compton. But by the way, what's wrong with Compton, My girl Serena's from there!"

Williams likewise said she is "proud to be from Compton" and added that there are great people in Hollywood who had lived in the city. She cited rapper and music producer Dr. Dre and award-winning actor Kevin Costner.

Ice Cube supposed that the Daily Mail was "trying to crack a joke," a "very off-color joke," but in the end, "the joke was on them." He then advised, "You can't let what other people say or think about you affect you and how you think about yourself."

The 54-year-old rapper was also asked in general about his thoughts on Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's royal exit. He thinks that "when you're in the house, you can make more changes to the house than when you're outside of the house." He said if they had "stuck it out then they might have been able to make some changes."

However, contrary to Ice Cube's advise, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry took a different approach in dealing with the media. She sued The Mail on Sunday over its publication of a letter she sent to her father, Thomas Markle Sr. in 2018 and won in 2021. She initially included the "Straight Outta Compton" story in her argument.

Meanwhile, the Duke of Sussex spoke about the headline in his memoir "Spare." He wrote, "I'd been braced for the usual madness, the standard libels, but I hadn't anticipated this level of unrestrained lying."

Prince Harry called the tabloid's description of Meghan Markle a "dog whistle racism and the glaring, vulgar, in-your-face racism." He shared that his face froze, his blood stopped, and he was angry when he read the the headline. But he was "more ashamed" that his mother country was doing this to her.