Meghan Markle has said she did not feel "empowered to speak" during her time working as a member of the Royal Family in a new swipe.
The Duchess of Sussex, 43, sat down with Emma Grede, a British businesswoman, who hosts the podcast "Aspire".
Grede asked Meghan about her Instagram profile, which was launched on New Year's Day.
The mother-of-two explained: "It was a great way to get my voice back."
Meghan Markle says she ‘wasn’t empowered to speak’ in Royal Family as Duchess takes subtle swipe.
YouTube / Emma Grede
The podcast host then asked the Duchess of Sussex about her feelings surrounding her global fashion influence.
Meghan spoke candidly, saying: "My feelings surrounding it have ebbed and flowed because they say imitation is the best form of flattery.
"At the same time, you start to watch how it's being monetised at such a huge level globally, oftentimes not giving credit to the brands and the designers who actually made those pieces.
"So it was that fine line between, well, do you want to spoonfeed who the brands and the designers are, and then it feels promotional, when I have no skin in the game in any of those arrangements.
Emma Grede is the host of her podcast 'Aspire'.Getty"At the same time, do you want people to mislabel it? Because when I didn't feel as though I had as much of an opportunity to speak, what can you say with what you're wearing? You can say a lot.
"So being able to support especially female-founded designers, small local brands, any territories we would go to on certain tours, I always tried to tap into local designers to really see their business just do so well as a result or how many people they could help or how much they could give back."
Grede asked Meghan if those fashion choices were purposeful, to which the former working royal replied: "Of course."
She continued: "There's an intention. So I think in moments where I found I wasn't as empowered with my voice, I still wanted to be heard in other ways.
Meghan Markle spoke about her struggles to find acting roles.YouTube / Emma Grede"I still wanted women to know that I was supporting them. I still wanted people to feel like, even if I didn't get an uplift from that, that they did.
"In some ways, that actually did uplift me because I went, 'Oh my gosh.' Like, there was a company that made jeans, and they would help women.
"They gave the positions and the roles to women who would have been trafficked, and they took them off the streets and they put them into this labour force to be able to have a well-paying job where they were well taken care of.
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Meghan Markle makes surprising race claim leaving host speechless.YouTube / Emma Grede"To be able to help that company and get letters from those founders saying we were able to help save 25 women because of you wearing these jeans - that is a huge privilege of influence, and I never took that lightly."
Referring to her new lifestyle brand, As Ever, which sells jams, honey and flower sprinkles, Meghan concluded: "Had I chosen to just maximise the opportunity of the financial element of having a business, doing fashion would have been very obvious, as we talked about.
"But I wanted to go with what my heart was really responding to in this moment."
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