It’s prompted more hilarious howls than Keir Starmer’s ill-timed plea for sausages – but Meghan Markle’s Netflix show and her US career are on life support. Even its name makes you want to headbutt the wall. ‘With Love, Meghan’ sounds like a range of teddy bears holding hearts, the type found in upmarket greetings cards shops.
It’s basically her preparing nibbles for virtue-signalling US ‘celebrity’ woke guests I guarantee most of us have never heard of. One is a ‘makeup artist to the stars’. We’re clearly in for deep, profound conversations. According to Netflix she invites “friends and famous guests to a beautiful California estate, where she shares cooking, gardening and hosting tips.”
One such vital life hack that had US late night talk shows giggling was ‘pretzel-gate’.
She made her own peanut butter pretzel bags for a guest by opening a big bag of supermarket pretzels, putting some into a separate plastic bag, secured with a string bow, and calling it her ‘snack prep’.
Has she not heard of a bowl?!
The original bag had a helpful label, warning it’s completely full of nuts. Meghan needs one herself.
Her new clear bag had a handwritten label that read “peanut butter” because, as the duchess says in the show, “you always want to be conscious if someone has a nut allergy.”
If I was handed a clear, sealed plastic bag of crisps at a party, complete with a bow, I’d assume I was supposed to take it home – or it was a really naff Christmas present.
The hack was so ludicrous it became a meme and mocking fodder for America’s late night chat show hosts like Jimmy Fallon that love fresh celebrity prey.
In US military terms, pretzel-gate started the ‘mission-creep’ that Netflix was dreading. It was open hunting season on the Sussexes. Meghan was grouse on the glorious 12th.
In X, formerly Twitter, one user wrote: “I’m so glad I can watch her take pretzels out of a labelled bag and put them into a new bag… then label it. The people’s Martha Stewart!”
The show originally premiered in March before a second season, filmed at the same time, was released later in August but both have been panned more than a Sierra Nevada riverbed.
The first episode was called ‘Hello, Honey!’ (Pass the vomit bag please, quick!)
Netflix described it as: “When Meghan’s friend Daniel Martin (anyone? No, seriously, who the hell is this guy?) comes to visit, she prepares a thoughtful guest basket, then harvests honey for DIY beeswax candles and a sweet treat.”
I guarantee you now – go up to a friend and tell them: “For Christmas I have made you a thoughtful guest basket.” It sounds sinister. The word “thoughtful” lingers like a heavy odour. There’s almost a hint of menace.
The description of the 36 minutes of horse-related fertiliser that is episode four sounds like a parody. Sadly it isn’t.
Entitled: ‘Love Is In The Details’, Netflix says: “Meghan and her polo pal Delfina Figueras enjoy a hike in the great outdoors, followed by an afternoon picnic featuring fresh, homemade focaccia.”
The defence rests M’Lud.
In another episode called ‘Welcome to the Party’ – surely ‘wake’ is more appropriate – US comedian and “fellow toddler mom” Mindy Kaling drops by Montecito “to help Meghan plan a kid-friendly tea party in the garden.”
Mindy puts her foot in it when she tells Meghan: “I don’t think anyone in the world knows that Meghan Markle has eaten Jack In the Box.”
Meghan’s prickly reply: “It’s so funny, you keep saying Meghan Markle – you know I’m Sussex now?” Awkward silence as Mindy wonders “why did my agent agree to this?”
Season two had an episode called ‘It’s Way Past Our Bread-time’ (geddit?) where “fellow mom Chrissy Teigen stops by for a hands-on craft day with pressed flowers and throwback snacks.”
This is the same Chrissy Teigen who admitted she was a “an insecure, attention-seeking troll” and was forced to apologise for sending a number of fellow celebs, including a child, vile private messages urging they kill themselves.
Good wholesome fun!
Now Meghan’s just had her Christmas special, the reviews are in and it appears to have briefly fostered world peace by uniting the planet… against it.
The one-off episode, titled ‘With Love, Meghan: Holiday Celebration’, aired just hours after the Princess of Wales published a personal letter to guests attending her annual carol concert on Friday.
One reviewer summed it up: “I can only assume that the part where she puts on monogrammed red pyjamas and talks about quiche Lorraine in a My Fair Lady accent was a fever dream.”
All people in the US are asking is when will Netflix tear up her contract. One bookmaker was letting punters take even money bets the show is axed by actual Christmas.
When you’re being openly mocked it’s time to cut and run and it seems America wants the Sussexes to get the focaccia out of their country.
So seeing them crop up back in the UK is not as outlandish as you could think. And TV companies are still daft enough to throw cash at them.
I can just imagine a potential ITV1 series now – maybe called ‘Mud Love, Meghan’. The Duchess of Sussex starts a farm in the Cotswolds raising wholesome corn while local celebrities pop in for frittatas and parfaits. You heard it here first!
