Meghan Markle began the year with a giddy Instagram post encouraging fans to expect big things from her in the year ahead but ends it with a fist full of agonizingly bad reviews of her Netflix show.
In 2025, the Duchess of Sussex pivoted to being a lifestyle influencer with a TV show, With Love, Meghan, a podcast about business, Confessions of a Female Founder, and an online shop, As Ever.
However, she closes out the year still with everything to prove on the back of bad reviews and TikTok parodies, though on the plus side she has fixed some of the teething problems with her store.
Meghan Markle Returns to Instagram
The first step in Meghan’s reinvention came with her return to Instagram on January 1, when she posted a video showing her run across a beach and then mark “2025” in the sand with her finger.
Over the course of the year, she used her account to announce a rebrand of her lifestyle business from American Riviera Orchard to As Ever, writing: “In two weeks, my series on @netflix launches—but there’s something else I’ve been working on. I’m thrilled to introduce you to As Ever—a brand that I created and have poured my heart into.
“‘As ever’ means ‘as it’s always been’ or some even say ‘in the same way as always’. If you’ve followed along since my days of creating The Tig, you’ll know this couldn’t be truer for me. This new chapter is an extension of what has always been my love language, beautifully weaving together everything I cherish—food, gardening, entertaining, thoughtful living, and finding joy in the everyday.”
And she sparked headlines with a video of her heavily pregnant in hospital attempting to induce labor by doing the “Baby Momma” dance, popularized by Starrkeisha.
Meghan the Lifestyle Influencer
In March, Season One of her Netflix cooking show, With Love, Meghan, dropped, in which she presented a one pot pasta dish with chard and tomatoes and made her own bath salts to give to a guest.
The reviews, however, were scathing. It was always expected that she would get a rough ride in the British press but the big story of the release was the reaction of U.S. outlets that had previously been positive about her.
Chief among them was Vulture, whose critic went as far as affirming Meghan’s narrative about her royal exit before taking no prisoners in relation to With Love.
“With Love, Meghan is an utterly deranged bizarro world voyage into the center of nothing,” wrote reviewer Kathryn VanArendonk, “a fantastical monument to the captivating power of watching one woman decorate a cake with her makeup artist while communicating solely through throw-pillow adages about joy and hospitality.
“It is painfully defensive. Meghan comes across as constantly worried about what people will think, and because of it, the show can neither flaunt her unusual life, nor can it embrace legitimate ordinariness.”
The other major reaction came in the form of TikTok parodies of the duchess, which particularly focused on the idea she was out of her depth. Among the most viral moments from the show came when she took Trader Joe’s Peanut Butter Filled Pretzels out of their original packet and put them in a new clear plastic bag which she marked with her guest’s name.
Elsewhere, some were confused by a moment when actress Mindy Kaling referred to the duchess as Meghan Markle only for Meghan to correct her, saying “you know I’m Sussex now.”
The show currently has a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 23 percent having released two seasons and a Christmas special—With Love, Meghan: Holiday Celebration.
Season Two and the special both earned fewer U.S. reviews than Season One, though a write up in the Washington Post of the special carried the headline: “This can’t be the future Meghan Markle envisioned: What in the name of Wallis Simpson is going on with the repatriated royal’s new Netflix special?”
“The people who walk into Meghan’s cottage are supposedly her friends,” columnist Monica Hesse wrote, “but many behave as though they’ve just had a burlap sack pulled off their heads and learned: Bad news, the kidnapping wasn’t a dream; good news, if you just make some lavender syrup with this woman, she’ll let you go.”
Hesse noted that Meghan probably had few options for her post-royal life that made complete sense before adding: “With Love, Meghan is probably a pretty good fit, but no matter how genuinely Meghan tries to come across on screen, I felt irritable toward her.
“Either her advice felt so basic as to be condescending (Yes, Meghan, even we peasants understand to hang ornaments so they catch the light), or so elevated as to be out of touch (Babe, I work full time and clean my own toilet; I don’t have time to make my family members personalized Advent calendars), and always delivered with a level of chipper that nobody with children younger than 8 should be able to relate to.”
The year also saw Meghan and Prince Harry sign a new “first look deal” with Netflix, which maintained their partnership with the streaming platform but on less favorable terms.
Meghan’s As Ever Shop
Meghan launched As Ever as a platform where she could sell produce, including jam, edible flower sprinkles and cookie mix, though it was initially hamstrung by a shortage of stock.
The initial product release sold out in minutes and it was then months before she restocked, only to sell out in minutes yet again.
Meghan then added an As Ever wine, and that sold out too, but by August she had resolved her initial supply side problems and in the latter part of the year As Ever has continued to have some items on sale consistently.
A source with knowledge of the business told Newsweek in November: “Everybody’s really pleased that some of the gremlins that were there at the start—that are inevitable with any new business—seem to have been ironed out now… as it related to things like supply chain, production, scalability, that sort of thing.
“It all seems to be in a pretty good place but it’s still a young business. There’s still and always will be room for improvement, but it’s going really, really well. It’s starting to find its stride now.”
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