Meghan (Markle) Sussex: When Inauthenticity, Playing The Victim, And Fake Attribution Is Your Business Brand, But Then You Get Caught Up In Your Lies – And How To Overcome All The Hate From Everyone

Meghan Markle…What can one say about Meghan Markle? I know of Meghan, Duchess of Sussex as an actress through her work on ‘Suits’, as well as the Hallmark movies she starred in, including 2014’s ‘When Sparks Fly’ and 2016’s ‘Dater’s Handbook’. And speaking of Dater’s Handbook’, I personally heard some people say online that the movie was distinctly a representation of Markle’s relationship with Prince Harry. Because she hasn’t been very perceive in telling the world what she wants to be called throughout the years, which I’ll get to later, I’ll just call her Meghan for all intents and purposes.

Netflix recently released ‘With Love, Meghan’, a TV series which aimed to capture Meghan’s ‘modest’ and ‘relatable’ lifestyle. Ted Sarandos, Netflix CEO, said in a statement, ‘We’re a passive partner in Meghan’s company, and it’s a big discovery model for us right now. I think Meghan is underestimated in terms of her influence on culture. When we dropped the trailer for the ‘Harry & Meghan’ doc series [in 2022], everything on-screen was dissected in the press for days. People are fascinated with Meghan Markle. She and Harry are overly dismissed.’ Most people around the world, including me, didn’t agreed with Sarandos.

After reading so many bad reviews for the show and watching numerous influencers and YouTubers talk negatively about it, and about Meghan herself, I thought it’d be a good idea to tell my husband about so we could laugh together. He urged that we watch the show together because, in his words, we needed to make our own judgement rather than rely on the opinions of others. I hesitantly agreed, and it turned out to be a big mistake. Within 5 minutes of listening to Meghan speak, my husband gave me, what I call, ‘the look’ and asked, ‘What is this and who is it supposed to be for?’ It really was confusing. Meghan was trying so hard to be appealing and resonated, but miserably failed at it. She just wasn’t likeable, and all the things she said made her look like a rich, spoiled, privileged little sh*thead.

Ok, I probably shouldn’t be so mean about it. After all, this blog is all for the #WomenSupportingWomen movement. And nevertheless, Meghan became the most hated woman in the world even before her newest show came out. The trailer for the show was the most disliked trailer on the platform, and viewers noticed that it was, quite literally, identical to Pamela Anderson’s cooking show, ‘Pamela’s Cooking With Love’. Anderson is a longtime advocate for veganism and healthy eating, and the show saw her invite chefs to her Vancouver Island home to learn plant-based cooking and host dinner parties.  At the end of each episode, some of the world’s most beloved chefs joined Anderson in her kitchen to learn how to cook plant-based meals for dinner parties. Another drastic difference between Anderson’s cooking show and Meghan’s cooking show is that Anderson went to culinary school, whereas Meghan didn’t.

Meghan’s cooking could be compared to that of a 4 year old’s. I swear, I think my 2 year old son could put together the meals that she made if I showed him how, and she made an entire freaking show out of it. The meals that she prepared were problematic. They weren’t ones that women would have time or energy to even think to prepare in the mornings for their kids; most memorably, the giant fruit rainbow board that she prepared. And not only that, but none of the meals she prepared were actually anything new or organically produced by her. Those meals, including the rainbow fruit board, were created decades before her and could be googled with the original concept.

There was absolutely nothing original about Meghan’s content; nor was there anything authentic about it either. It wasn’t even filmed at her and Prince Harry’s own home. It was a studio house. But that part was the smallest of reasons why the show wasn’t authentic. It’s actually a standard practice for reality stars not to film in their own homes. It’s mostly done as a precaution due to security considerations. The Kardashians also have never filmed any of their reality shows in the homes they reside in. There was so much more to the show than Meghan not using her own house that made it unpleasant to watch.

Meghan aimed to be another version of Martha Stewart and Rachael Ray. But at least Martha Stewart and Rachael Ray knew exactly who their audiences were. Their audiences were stay-at-home moms living regular lives. Meghan aimed to get the same audience’s attention. But she did so while also showcasing her lavish lifestyle, which most stay-at-home moms don’t have, especially at a time like this. And if they do, they probably won’t go watch the show because they already know what to do to maintain Meghan’s lifestyle. Working moms, like her, also wouldn’t be a target market for her, because they just don’t have the time to watch her show; nor do they have time to prepare a rainbow fruit board, of all things, early in the morning. There was a lack of self awareness on Meghan’s part.

The lack of authenticity and self awareness that we saw coming from Meghan goes beyond her not using her house and her cooking skills; or the lack of. Meghan just seemed overly concerned with how she was perceived. It seemed as though she was more concerned with the public perception of her rather than the actual quality of the content she produced. I personally sensed a desperation on her part. Each episode, Meghan brought a guest, and sometimes two, to her ‘home’ for her to host a dinner party. She claimed they were all close friends and confidants, but it all seemed too fake. She seemed fake. The show, to its entirety, felt staged, manufactured, and calculated. Megan’s lack of genuine emotion just couldn’t be ignored throughout the 8 episodes, no matter how hard she tried. There was no realness to it. The entire premise of the show was for us, the viewers, to get to know Meghan as a person, as well as to be able to relate to her. But there was no relatability in sight whatsoever. Everything seemed to be too polished and manufactured. It was too perfect.

The first guest Meghan invited to ‘her’ house was Daniel Martin. He was her makeup artist while she starred in ‘Suits’ and beyond. She claimed him as the one who was there for her ‘before, during, and after’. This will be important later. Meghan and Martin go way back, with the artist having crafted the former actress for her 2018 wedding to Prince Harry. He’s also worked with other celebrity clients, like Ali Wong and Gemma Chan. On top of being a renowned celebrity makeup artist, Martin is also a global director of artistry and education at luxury beauty brand, Tatcha. Meghan claimed that she and Martin were close friends, but it was pretty evident that they were acquaintances, at best. She knew absolutely nothing about him – the person she claimed to be her close friend. She didn’t even know he was left handed. It just went on to show that she’s not only a terrible friend, but a terrible boss too. That’s a quality that makes Kylie Jenner a great boss, unlike Meghan. But more on that later.

Meghan’s second guest was none other than Mindy Kailing, star and creator of ‘The Mindy Project’, as well as co-creator of ‘Running Point’, which was created alongside Ike Barinholtz, who also starred on, executive produced, and wrote ‘The Mindy Project alongside Kailing. To say that Meghan’s encounter with Kailing was awkward would be an understatement. And again, just like with Martin in the previous episode, Meghan’s ‘friendship’ with Kailing seemed to be all for show. If there’s anything we learned from Meghan, it’s how to be rude to your guest and make them feel uncomfortable. Meghan was rude and condescending with Kailing, and made her feel like she was beneath her. On example of that was when Kailing called Meghan ‘Meghan Markle’, and Meghan then said, almost angrily, that her last name was Sussex, almost as if everyone was supposed to know that. Just years prior, however, she cried to Oprah saying that she lost her name when she became a part of the royal family, and wanted to be known as Meghan Markle.

Also in that very same episode, Meghan hosted a lunch birthday party for toddlers; with absolutely no toddlers in sight. We saw her ‘teach’ Kailing, as well as the viewers, how to blow balloons; as if none of us had no clue how to do it. Meghan was full of herself through the entire 8 episodes, even seemingly feeling proud of herself for making her ‘friend’ coffee. The real saving grace in the series were Meghan’s guests, but specifically Kailing herself. I personally wish we got to see a show called ‘With Love, Mindy’. Kailing is brilliant. She could literally have a conversation with a wall and make it astonishingly funny and beautiful. She could turn every awkward situation into a joke. Meghan, on the other hand, is very bland and boring through and through. I love to hate-watch terrible Netflix shows just like the rest of you, but this was truly, utterly unbearable.

There were a lot of sides to Meghan on the show. There was Meghan appearing in a Barbie-esque variety of guises—Beekeeping Meghan, Fruit-Picking Meghan, Candlemaker Meghan, as well as the Microwave-Popcorn Meghan. She was wearing designer clothing, and had a lot of jewelry on to make sure we all knew what a privileged life she’s living. She even stuck her very expensive rings in raw food! And speaking of food, we got to see A LOT of chopping. There was a lot of layering and arranging, pouring and storing, spacing and placing. Dinky glasses of fruit and cream, frozen orange juice roses, and a she’s-beautiful-on-the-inside cake. The more we saw her do her ‘thing’, whatever that might’ve been, the harder it became not to constantly double-guess what you were seeing. There was a lot of wishy-washy stuff happening all around. The show was filled with low-skilled, high-presentation moments. There was nothing I learned from watching the show. I didn’t learn any new skills or tricks. And I didn’t learn anything about Meghan herself. Great domestic shows give you newness—an original hack, a different perspective, a way of being. ‘With Love, Meghan’ didn’t give any of it. I honestly didn’t understand what the whole point of the show was other than Meghan showing off and telling the world, ‘Hey, look at me and how awesome my life is!’ It was almost a F*ck You moment to the royal family.

On ‘With Love, Meghan’, we got to see what an unreliable source she’s been over the years. In the first episode of series, while she prepared a single-skillet spaghetti with fresh tomatoes from her garden, a meal that she makes for her kids to take to school as their lunch, she talked to Martin, her makeup artist that I mentioned previously, Meghan reminisced on her time as an actor in ‘Suits’, and as a tastemaker with her lifestyle blog ‘The Tig’. It was a lifestyle blog that she started in 2014 while working on her show, doing it in between scenes in her trailer. Martin also worked on the site as a beauty editor. She said, ‘It was all in the spirit of just sharing things that I loved.’ In 2017, as her relationship with Prince Harry progressed and the couple became engaged, the former actress shut down her brand. She said, ‘Well, I loved The Tig, but I certainly love my husband more. So that was a choice I made at the time, and I wouldn’t change that for a second. My husband met me when I had ‘The Tig’, and I see this spark in his eye when he sees me doing the thing that I was doing when he first met me.’

I remember reading her blog. I actually really liked it. It was very obvious that it was Meghan’s passion project. It was done with love and care. That was actually her best work; aside from her starring in ‘Suits’ as Rachel. I’d even say her writing was better than her acting, and maybe that’s too far fetched. It’s definitely better than whatever she, (and Prince Harry) are doing now. ‘The Tig’ was where she was most authentically herself. The site had plenty of updates from Meghan’s own life, as well as topics including restaurants, travel, fashion and cooking. And now, she has a new brand, ‘As Ever’. When announcing her newest endeavour, Meghan said, ‘’As Ever’ essentially means as it’s always been, and if you’ve followed me since 2014 with ‘The Tig’, you know I’ve always loved cooking and crafting and gardening – this is what I do. And I haven’t been able to share it with you in the same way for the past few years, but now I can.’ Most notably, as she announced the closing of her lifestyle blog, she wrote in part, ‘Above all, don’t ever forget your worth – as I’ve told you time and time again: you, my sweet friend, you are enough. Thank you for everything.’

This is very confusing; for me, at least. On one hand, Meghan tells her fans to never forget her worth. On the other, she seemed to have forgotten her worth in her relationship with Prince Harry. Did she not comprehend what being married to a royal would entail? Or was she just talking out of her a** when she insisted for her fans to not forget their worth? Then again, I shouldn’t be surprised. None of us should be surprised, because it seems that everything about Meghan is contradictory. For example, on her blog, Meghan described her father, Thomas Markle, as a supportive figure in her life who invested in her future and believed in her acting dreams, even volunteering to help with her school productions. She wrote that he believed in her dreams of one day becoming an actress, and put an emphasis on the “blood, sweat, and tears” her father invested in her future, emphasizing his role in her success. She also mentioned spending weekends with her father, who would take her to ballet and tap classes, even after working long hours. 

So it’s safe to say that Thomas Markle was a very constant figure in her life, and was anything but an absent father despite him being divorced from Meghan’s mother. Before she closed down her personal Instagram account once she became engaged to Prince Harry, she’d post childhood photos of herself with her father and praise him for the role he played in her life. But by 2018, the one unbreakable father-daughter duo became estranged after Thomas was paid to be featured in a tabloid magazine talking about Meghan and Prince Harry’s union. She seemed to have completely forgotten where she came from. She seemed to have completely forgotten that the only reason she had a career as an actress and beyond is because of her father.

Let’s not forget that Thomas has ties to Hollywood himself, and Meghan is a nepo-baby. She didn’t get to where she is on her own. Thomas worked as a Hollywood lighting director. He worked as a director of photography on shows like ‘Married… with Children’ and ‘General Hospital’. He himself had some things to say about Meghan’s newest Netflix special. He said, ‘Unfortunately, Meghan has never been authentic. She has to think about everything. She’s not spontaneous. Everything she says is pre-planned and rehearsed. It makes me laugh because I know all her looks and expressions. I know when she’s faking it for the cameras. She’s trying so hard to be perfect that she tenses up every time the camera is on her.’ The Emmy Award winner (Thomas, not Meghan) labeled cooking shows as horrendously boring unless the presenter has a passion for it. He explained, ‘You have to be authentic to hold people’s attention. The best cooks are funny, they mess up, they are human. She just wants to be perfect. It’s sad because she’s trying so hard to stay in the limelight.’

And he was right. The show was unbelievably boring. As my husband turned on the very first episode, we couldn’t wait for it to be over. Within 5 minutes, we were both just looking at the clocks seeing how much time was left of the episode. By the 30 minute mark, we turned that sh*t off. I just couldn’t take looking at her face anymore. The final episode of the show featured Prince Harry and Meghan’s mother, whom Meghan spoke highly of, unlike of her father, who wasn’t mentioned at all. But I couldn’t even get through half an hour of the first episode, let alone 8 hours of this bull. Her father was absolutely right about her. He said it exactly how it is; and he said exactly what all of us were thinking. In the series, she called herself a latchkey kid who grew up on a lot of fast food and TV dinners, as if we were supposed to sympathize with her and see her as this poor Black kid. That was further from the truth. Her father said, ‘We occasionally ate TV dinners, which family doesn’t? We would eat out at least three times a week and order in the rest of the time. Like any single father who did a long day’s work, I’d occasionally put a TV dinner in the microwave. But most of the time we’d go out. After school, I would either pick her up myself, and we’d go out to eat, or I’d send a car to bring her to the set. She grew up on the sets I worked on. She was never a latchkey kid. We lived in a great area, which was packed with restaurants. We ate out all the time. At weekends when I wasn’t working, I’d take her to a dance class and then invite her and all her friends out for a meal.’

Meghan became estranged from her father after her 2018 wedding to Prince Harry. Thomas suffered TWO heart attacks, and therefore, couldn’t attend her big day, and she got upset and offended. There was also the staged paparazzi photos of him. When she confronted him about it, Thomas denied any involvement. But her half-sister, Samantha Markle, has since admitted to working with the tabloids to stage the photos. Normally, I’d be on Meghan’s side of the coin. I WAS on Meghan’s side. In hindsight, in my own relationship with my husband, I was the Meghan of it all. I’m sure his family sees me as one; the one to blame for their estrangement from my husband, when in reality, they were the sole causes of it all. I was the reason he lasted as long as he did, as he was ready to never have anything to do with them years prior to their estrangement. But they can say whatever helps them sleep at night. I’d rather be perceived as the Meghan Markle of it all than be stuck in a toxic situation.

The more time passed since Meghan and Prince Harry left their royal duties in 2019, the harder it became to empathize with or feel sorry for them. They kept insisting that they’d left the royal family because they wanted privacy, but they’d done nothing but be in the public eye since they left. And what’s worse is that all they’d ever done is talk sh*t about the royal family. The royal family, in turn, have been nothing but a class act, even though they had every reason not to be. When Princess Diana would’ve turned 60 years old, Prince William still invited his estranged brother and his wife to attend the festivities and walk alongside of them to the park of people celebrating with them. The animosity between the foursome was evident throughout. But the royal family did what they felt was right. With Meghan and Prince Harry, however, everything they’d ever done seems to be calculated. There seems to be a camera everywhere, and then Meghan cries and complains, and then she’ll seek attention somewhere else.

In the very first episode of ‘Harry & Meghan’, another Netflix production no one even asked for, the Duke of Sussex said of his wife, ‘So much of what Meghan is and how she is, is so similar to my mum. She has the same compassion. She has the same empathy. She has the same confidence. She has this warmth about her.’ There’s no doubt that Meghan is similar to Princess Diana. She and Harry were even allegedly involved in a strikingly similar in a ‘near catastrophic car chase’ to the one that took Princess Diana’s life in 1997. The reason why I used the word ‘allegedly is because it’s doubtful that that’s what actually happened. This occurred in New York. As we all know, it’s pretty hard, I’d even say almost impossible, to have a car chase in New York, which again makes Meghan and Harry look like unreliable sources. It makes one question whether even the similarities between Meghan and Princess Diana were strategically calculated.

Meghan is the ‘Perfect Victim’. She’s put out an entire narrative posits that she’s more deserving of sympathy or attention than others based on their perceived characteristics, such as being innocent, vulnerable, or lacking flaws. In a generalized basis, this can manifested in a number of ways:

• Victim-blaming: This narrative can lead to victims being blamed for their victimization, often based on their appearance, behavior, or reputation. 
• Media portrayal: The media often portrays “perfect victims” as innocent and pure, which can reinforce the idea that some victims are more deserving than others. 
• Legal implications: In court, defense attorneys may use the ‘perfect victim’ narrative to argue that a victim’s character or actions are somehow to blame for the crime. 

All this perfectly describes Meghan Markle; or she likes to call herself now, Meghan Sussex. It’s always important to challenge the ‘perfect victim’ narrative and to recognize that all victims deserve respect and support, regardless of their perceived characteristics or flaws. I think now, we’re finally challenging Meghan. It was a long time coming, and it should’ve been done sooner. I think ‘With Love, Meghan’ unintentionally uncovered Meghan’s true identity, which is a Cinderella-wannabe. Is her career over? No. There’s still going to be a season 2 of the show, which has already been filmed. She’s still getting exactly what she wants, which to get people and the media talking about her. The one difference now is that no one, and I mean NO ONE, is going to ever feel sorry or sympathize with her in any shape or form. And even more so, no one will ever believe any word that ever comes out of her mouth. The internet never lies.

Ok, I’m wrong. The internet DOES lie – a lot. But the internet has receipts, and the receipts tell us that Meghan isn’t a person to be trusted or to be taken seriously. Meghan didn’t want privacy. She wanted the same fame and fortune that being a royal entailed her. But she wanted it on her own terms. She wanted to be the entrepreneur of her own endeavours. Maybe I’m saying this because I was too young to understand Princess Diana as a woman or what she represented to the royal family and the entire world itself, but Meghan is, and never will be Princess Diana, no matter how many times a day Prince Harry keeps telling himself otherwise. Princess Diana was a class act. She did everything that she did out of kindness and her good heart. Nothing was for a public show. Meghan, on the other hand, does EVERYTHING for attention. Nothing is ever just to be kind; just to be a giving human. Everything needs to be filmed. Everything needs to be photographed. Everyone needs to know what a poor, sad victim she is. Even the last moments of ‘With Love, Meghan’ included footage of her volunteering for those who lost their homes after the Los Angeles fires. Initially, it was thought that the show, which was supposed to be released before the fires happened, was postponed due to timing issues. But no; that wasn’t why. It was for the opportunity to film another ‘act of kindness’. And now, finally, she’s getting called out on it – as she should! Let it be known: the royal family isn’t the actual problem. Thomas Markle and his other kids aren’t the problem. It’s Meghan and Prince Harry who are the actual problem. It’s what the stories they make up in their heads that will benefit them.

With all that being said, their love story shouldn’t be romanticized. Their words shouldn’t be romanticized. Their mantra shouldn’t be romanticized. Them as individual people shouldn’t be romanticized. And now they aren’t. A recent study showed that Meghan and Prince Harry are the lesser favourable royals, according to the British public opinion. They hold twice as many Britons having a negative view (61%) of Prince Harry than a positive one (30%), while two-thirds of the public (68%) have an unfavourable view of Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, compared to just one in five (21%) who see her favourably. ‘With Love, Meghan’ isn’t the first time that the former royal couple has been called fake; but it did mark the beginning of a broader conversation on how utterly sh*tty people they really are. But I’m sure they’ll continue doing what they do. After all, even bad press is good press… they’re the ones who know it best.