‘Diva’ has good, neutral and bad connotations – but as singers from Maria Callas to Beyoncé have shown, it is a trait of sheer excellence

It was on the second episode of Meghan Markle’s podcast Archetype, in which she interviewed her girl crush or queen or whatevs, Mariah Carey, that the moment happened: Markle used the word “diva” of Carey, and Mariah replied that Meghan had her own diva moments. The two women moved past the awkwardness such that a regular listener might not even have logged it, had not Meghan extensively editorialised afterwards: “It stopped me in my tracks, when she called me a diva,” Markle said, with great urgency, you can almost hear her leaning forwards. “I started to sweat a little bit. I started squirming in my chair in this quiet revolt. Why would you say that? My mind was spinning with what nonsense had she read or clicked on that made her think that about me.” OK, so clearly Mariah Carey thinks of the word as positive or neutral, while Meghan Markle thinks it is pejorative.

The word does indeed have three meanings, good, neutral, evil, like in Dungeons and Dragons. That evolution is natural: “diva” is only used of women, and heavily skewed towards women of colour, to denote, per the editor Marna Nightingale: “Both stubborn and exacting professionally, sometimes dramatic about it, but, and this is important, they’re doing it because they know their stuff and they almost always turn out to be right.” It is rarely used of someone who isn’t creative and charismatic, so it contains an element of awe. This is good diva.