The Telegraph. Absolutely brutal!
https://archive.ph/LHgmb
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/02/20/meghan-harry-no-original-ideas/
‘As Ever. It’s a rebrand, it’s a lifestyle. Does it still revolve round jars of bespoke jam from a named strawberry plant? I have no idea.
What I do know is that it’s a painfully apposite summation of Meghan’s ill-fated back-of-an-envelope career since fleeing these shores. The charity, the podcast, the philanthropy, the film productions, the whole American Riviera Orchard thing, doomed. As Ever.
Is it any wonder her latest lifestyle venture already looks set to end in toe-curling failure? Not least because the Duchess of Sussex is a 43-year-old mother of two, yet appears to have reinvented herself as an ingénue. It’s all there in the optics of her Instagram, with its dreamy down-home video footage of her walking and giggling and disingenuously touching her face with an air of pinch-me-I’m-dreaming astonishment.
Sure, the former actress married into the most prestigious Royal family on the planet. Yes, she was wed in the chapel at Windsor Castle, greeted on the Long March by throngs of smitten fans and was treated with such gracious warmth by none other than the late Queen herself.
But that was then. Now, post-Megxit with a lifestyle brand to flog, that’s all been airbrushed out. Why? Because she’s just a girl, standing in front of an Instagram, asking the entire world to love her. Oh dear. As Ever.
She’s been plying her trade solo of late because Harry’s a spare not an heir and someone has to bring home the bacon – sorry, I mean avocados – to Prince Archie, aged five, and three-year-old Princess Lilibet.
And that is proving to be a bit of an ask, because (whisper it) she doesn’t appear to have an original idea in her head.
If you’re still confused, a quick romp through the Sussex Inc timeline. Having bagged her handsome prince in 2018, by 2019, Meghan, who had won our hearts completely, realised she just wasn’t that into us, here in dreary Britain.
She’s a self-confessed hugger after all, and life with stuffed-shirt aristos in their draughty old piles wasn’t nearly as Downton Abbey as she’d hoped (I paraphrase). So, in the first of many brainwaves, she and Harry announced their intention to “carve out a progressive new role” and divide their time between the UK and the US. What larks.
The late Queen failed to share their vision – which was essentially a glorified WFH plan – but granted them a transition period before whipping out the royal scissors and cutting the rope.
And so they headed off in March 2020 and progressively bought a nine-bedroom mansion for a reported $14 million in the Montecito neighbourhood of Santa Barbara.
“We can all live a life of service, Service is universal,” they reflected, stoically accepting they would never again open a day centre in Wolverhampton or tramp around drizzly Balmoral at the height of “summer”.
And so they set up Archewell, a flagship charity to do conspicuously good works, and Archewell Productions, a company grandiosely “dedicated to illuminating thought-provoking and diverse narratives”.
Then came the Spotify deal; a really boring 12-episode podcast called Archetypes, which was pulled after a single season. Reportedly they didn’t generate enough content to receive full payment, rumoured to be £15 million.
Fellow Spotify podcaster and senior executive at the company, Bill Simmons, subsequently blasted them as “grifters”, although it was rumoured Harry had suggested interviewing Vladimir Putin about his “childhood traumas” which, when you think about it, could have dramatically altered the course of history. Or accelerated it.
Then came a reported and eye-watering £80 million five-year deal with Netflix, which peaked with Harry & Meghan, a behind-the-scenes insight into their love story. Unfortunately it then petered off when Pearl, an achingly worthy animation, was axed before it began and Harry’s 2024 five-part docuseries Polo failed to resonate with audiences – the bloody proles!
There was talk about a £3 million adaptation of the schmalzy bestseller Meet Me At The Lake, but that appears to have gone under as well. As Ever.
But Meghan was busy behind the scenes and in 2024 unveiled her glamorous new venture. By means of a 15-second teaser showing her using a whisk in a rustic-looking kitchen, arranging a bouquet of white and pink flowers, and posing outdoors in a black dress, she launched her new (now-defunct, do keep up at the back) lifestyle brand American Riviera Orchard.
It was destined to sell a frankly bizarre range of unrelated products that brought to mind the children’s memory game My Grandmother Went To Market.
Commentators were baffled to see a list including tea, olive oil, pet shampoo, the aforementioned jam and – wait for it – wallpaper. No offence, but maybe granny needs a check-up?
Meanwhile, her new cookery and lifestyle (that word again) Netflix show With Love, Meghan is due to hit our screens next month – after being tactfully postponed due to the wildfires. In the trailer, she promises to “elevate the everyday” with edible flower petals, home-baked focaccia and honey she has freshly harvested herself. No wonder Wolverhampton didn’t appeal.
The thinking (if churning out yet an other cookery show requires any) was that she would market the gorgeous pricey produce she uses at home under her American Riviera Orchard banner. But guess what?
It is no more, Meghan brightly announced this week. Her attempts to trademark the name were unsuccessful for the bleeding obvious reason that in the US businesses are not allowed to trademark geographic locations.
I’m no expert, but would it not have been really quite easy to practice due diligence and check right at the beginning? Anyway, that was so earlier this week. Now, it has been replaced with something much better. At least that’s the theory.
Enter As Ever. And for the avoidance of any confusion, she launched this iteration of her simple yet spenny lifestyle in a crisp white shirt and jeans. Ta-dah!
“As Ever, essentially means ‘as it’s always been… and if you’ve ever followed me since 2014… you’ll know I’ve always loved cooking and crafting and gardening,” she said directly addressing the camera – us – with delight, which feels very special because what she lacks in creative imagination she makes up for in beauty. “This is what I do!”
But into every life – and indeed lifestyle – a little rain must fall. It turns out the logo for As Ever, which features two birds and a palm tree, bears an uncanny resemblance to the heraldic coat of arms adopted by the Majorcan town Porreres – way back in 1370.
Meghan Markle's new logo bears striking resemblance to Mallorcan coat of arms
The mayoress has acknowledged the town cannot afford to sue for plagiarism and has called on Meghan to remove the logo. Uh-oh. Cultural appropriation is not the best of looks.
But it’s too soon to call (no, really). Let us wait and see how long this new reinvention lasts. We can all live a life of service, remember. And who doesn’t need wallpaper and pet shampoo?
Yours As Ever,
Judith’