To call it the televisual event of the year would be — let’s be honest — an understatement. With Love, Meghan, the much-awaited “lifestyle” Netflix show hosted by the Duchess of Sussex, has prompted more scathing reviews, memes, think pieces and WhatsApp groups called “For People Who’ve Made It as Far as the ‘Lavender Towels’ Episode” than any other occurrence on earth.
There has been a seismic outpouring of boggling that Meghan — who along with her husband, Prince Harry, was paid $100 million in a deal with Netflix in 2020 — had five years to come up with this: eight episodes, each seemingly made to either astonish or peeve the millions of viewers who were already inclined to dislike her in the first place.
Wearing a white blouse and drinking champagne, she prepares for a children’s birthday party by making … party bags full of basil seeds! She finds out a friend is coming over in little more than an hour … and starts making “emergency” jam and bath salts! She plans to go on a walk — or “hike”, as she insists — with a very tall friend (“You’re very tall!” “I know!”), but rather than taking a sandwich or a bottle of water, she carefully prepares lavender towels instead: chilled scented towels waiting in Ziploc bags in the fridge for when she returns.
“Oh! So good, right?” the duchess says, clutching her lavender towel to her neck, seemingly unaware of the alternative phenomenon of just sticking your head under the tap.
Another friend is coming over and Meghan delivers a voiceover: “I need to impress this man not only with my donuts — but with my cleanliness!” Because that’s what friendship is all about. Baking those donuts and wiping those sides down.
If you wanted a one-sentence review of With Love, Meghan it would be “woman with no actual job tries to turn manic, ultimately useless delightfulness into an actual job”. If you wanted a longer review, however, it would start with the sentence: ”With Love, Meghan made me feel incredibly sad.”
With Love, Meghan made me feel incredibly sad. The second episode — in which she invites over her “email friend”, the comedian Mindy Kaling — will at some point, I think, be taught in media studies classes. The idea is that it’s just two great gal pals hangin’ in the kitchen together. But within minutes it’s obvious they don’t know each other that well: first Kaling gets Meghan’s name wrong (“It’s not Markle — it’s Sussex now!”), then Markle/Sussex freezes in nervous terror whenever Kaling does what comedians do and tries to make jokes about the situation.
For something that’s supposed to be about aspirational fantasy — seamless, covetable perfection — it’s a third-rate piece of TV. The upbeat music syncs are jarring; the fact it’s shot not in Harry and Meghan’s house but in one hired from a friend feels weird; Meghan says something awkward and they have to leave it in as they just don’t have enough footage to edit it out. Why? Well, the production company is Archewell, the Sussexes’ production company. The executive producer is … the Duchess of Sussex. I guess there was no one more experienced around to say, “You know what? We either shoot more or we just junk this episode. It looks bad.”
And then why was Meghan so desperate to have total control over something she has no real experience or knowledge of? It’s not hard to work out: it is a fairly unignorable fact that Meghan Markle — a perfectly pleasant second-tier actor who then married a prince — has genuinely had more, and worse, media coverage than, say, Congolese warlords or the Sackler family. Most of us couldn’t name a Congolese warlord. I can name Meghan’s father, mother, sister, dog, children and favorite wine. Between March 1 and March 11 alone there were an astonishing 111 stories about her on MailOnline and all but one — startled, grudging praise for her focaccia recipe — were negative. No wonder she wants control over a tiny percentage of the Meghan coverage out there.
The thing is, even if every single accusation levelled at her turns out to be true — that she’s a calculating, narcissistic, bullying diva intent on bringing down the royal family and emasculating the previously “fun” Harry — then what has been her ultimate aim? We have to presume it’s With Love, Meghan, a show in which a very awkward, sad-eyed mother of two is endlessly compelled to make her friends food and presents, all of which she compulsively sprinkles with dried flowers, like some kind of metaphor.
There’s also a plan to bring out a range of towels and jam. I guess the empire could expand that far. But it’s a fairly benign goal, all told. In a world where Elon Musk threatens to withdraw Ukrainian access to satellite links, Andrew Tate posts videos promising to teach teenage boys to be pimps and Donald Trump insists he will forcibly purchase Greenland, the tsunami of bad press around Harry’s wife making lavender towels seems like a wildly misplaced spasm of energy.
In truth, With Love, Meghan looks like someone quite traumatized basically going, “Look! I’ve given up parties and politics — and even leaving the house. I’m trying to be a good girl. Please stop hating me.”
But people now hate With Love, Meghan too. The hate-watches have been so successful that a second series has been commissioned. Meghan does have a job: it’s to do stuff that people can hate. And she looks so sad. Like someone who’s been bullied for so long they now can’t remember why. They’re just sprinkling flowers on donuts and hoping it all gets better.
Caitlin Moran is a journalist and the author of More than a Woman, How to Build a Girl, and Moranthology
