As Ever Part 6: Definitely NOT a trad wife

[Strudie]

Previous thread here: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/the_royal_family/5286597-as-ever-part-v-two-stunt-lemons-with-love-meghan

Carry on! Reviews from the US are trickling in, so far, not so good - https://variety.com/2025/tv/reviews/with-love-meghan-markle-netflix-duchess-of-sussex-1236327469/

I have a switch off kettle in my USA house and it was a cheap one . I've never not known a kettle not to switch itself off unless a stove top one.

Haven't watched it but can see from the clips that it is indeed beautifully filmed and the light is gorgeous.

I do find it rather ridiculous the Bryony Gordon is defending Meghan by disclosing how close she is not only with Meghan but the children as well, including home visits. Yet it's Harry who accuses William and Camilla of being in bed with journalists. You'd think someone who has the morals to work for the daily mail (the toxic British media) would be kept at distance by Harry but no, as long as it's positive for him he doesn't seem to car.

And the designer of Kate's wedding dress is now the Creative Director!

Yes it’s bizarre isn’t it. The same as it’s absolutely not OK for the royals to feed bits to the media but a-ok when M&H do it.

I actually think she came across fine on Drew Barrymore, apart from the slip where she revealed the children are put to bed by a succession of nannies when she’s away and she quickly realised what she’d said.

While I think that Spectator article goes too far I do think she may have been on Ozempic and that might explain why her face looks different. It’s so widespread in LA. She remains a gorgeous and extremely photogenic woman though.

That’s probably it really. It took ages before her podcast was put together because I don’t think she really wanted to do it. I don’t personally believe any of these things are really a passion they're just what she has to do to get the money by fulfilling the contracts. I do think she wants to be in the public eye though, but just by being, rather than doing. Just my opinion of couse.

I think Meghan thinks she wants to do these things, like the podcast, then starts them. And they go from a shiny, fun idea to work, and then she loses enthusiasm. Goodness knows I've felt like that about projects before. And there's such a high scrutiny on everything she does that every project comes with enormous pressure.

I suspect she wants the kudos and praise for having done the thing, but finds the work of actually doing it difficult. One disadvantage of their situation is that she doesn't get to refine her projects with a small audience. Most podcasters would start small and iterate and refine, so by the time they start drawing a bigger audience, then they've hit their stride and are more comfortable. Same with TV hosts.

Meghan doesn't have that luxury, which is the downside of accepting deals worth millions of dollars. The upside, apart from the money, is that she has access to the best in the business, which is why people are unforgiving of any mistakes. She's said she's learning in real time, like with the name, but she's not some harried mother putting this together in her garage after putting her kids to bed having worked a full day at another job. Her mistakes aren't cute, they're frustrating when so many people would give their eye teeth to have the resources that she does.

@CathyorClaire - I was going to post this but you beat me to it. My best friend and I at junior school used to try to make rose petal water as a perfume. It was rose petals in a jar of water and shaken around a bit (we left out the apple core which was obviously a step too far for us ). What we ended up with was water with a scent only a well trained cadaver dog could discern and a whole lot of sludge in the jar. 😂

American here (from New England!), I have two electric kettles at home. They switch off once the water is boiling. I however cannot have one at work, along with electric lights (for Christmas decorating) and other stuff like that for “safety” reasons.

Thank you @StrawDonkey 💐 - Much appreciated

@MummyJ12 - I've had a quooker boiling water tap for about 15 years ( two houses so not exactly the same one.) I thought they were a gimmick initially - but I would not be without one now - I don't have a kettle - don't need one. Slight aside Also useful if you don't have a kitchen the size of a football pitch - less stuff to go on the counter top. ( My lifestyle tip for the day ) 😊

Kettles aren't banned? I'm in the US and have a kettle, and it even switches itself off when it boils and everything! Granted most americans (im not american) dont have them due to mainly drinking coffee, and using stove top kettles, but they are widely available for purchase and they all have the auto shut off thing. I would like one of these boiling water taps I often see mentioned on here but not sure if they are even available, definitely have never seen those anywhere

Thanks for your input. I had an outlet inspection last week to prove that we are not using extension cords and everything plugs directly into an outlet.

One of my coworkers unplugs the microwave every night so that it won't suddenly cause an overnight fire.

Thoughts and prayers 😂

It's part of their hypocrisy, isn't it? Other people have to be held up high standards, morally and ethically, but they behave in the most grasping, deceitful and duplicitous way. Of course they'll talk to the Daily Mail, in fact to any outlet that will listen. To accuse the RF of doing this is just a measure of how unpleasant, conniving and hypocritical they are.

I'm not a psychologist, and not really very interested in diagnosing people I don't know on the internet. I wouldn't call it anger exactly - more of a tightness, an aggression that's under the surface but permeates everything, especially her interactions with the other people on the show. It's made doubly awkward because it's wrapped up in a faux relaxed, giggle joy. There's nothing worse than watching a very up-tight person trying to exude relaxed, chilled joy. It's mildly stressful to watch.

I once worked with a client who had been through the wringer with internet criticisms (the substance of which were valid and needed addressing but she persisted in seeing them as merely 'jealous haters'). She wanted to produce content which would address the critics without overtly doing so, and the first rush footage was all dreadful because it had exactly this energy. I tried to address it directly and explain why it wasn't working. Reader, she fired me. That's fine because the finished products were dreadful and I'd rather not take someone's coin if I don't believe and feel comfortable with what they're doing. Fortunately, I no longer need to clutch on to every scrap of revenue like I used to when I was starting out on my own.

Another influencer, who I have NOT worked with, but who has this same angry energy masquerading as confidence, is Jack Monroe, and that's why she is similarly difficult to watch.

Viewers want to watch presenters who make us feel relaxed, easy and engaged, not nervous and uptight.

Bryony was poached from the Telegraph by the Mail specifically because she's mates with Harry, is pro-Meghan. The Mail wanted to balance their coverage of the Sussexes in an attempt to get Harry to settle his legal battles with them.

Mail Online readers, like the readers of most mainstream platforms, overwhelmingly engage with negative stories about the Sussexes rather than positive ones, because the Sussexes are very unpopular in the UK and fairly unpopular in the US (Mail Online's biggest market). But for PR reasons, the Mail is seeking to balance this with a stream of positive stories from Bryony.

So interesting. I haven't watched the series, mostly because it's not the type of thing I watch but the trailers keep showing a bit when she walks into a room saying "let's go" and every time it seems fake.

Reading your post I can see why, it's meant to be one thing but come across as another. The snippet I saw of her with Chef Choi was much better, she seemed to react naturally. One review made the point that a series of Meghan learning from and highlighting experts would work better.

Can I ask though, are her ratings high enough to get a second series do you think? Last year I watched a series that was number 1 everywhere and still not renewed so I'm wondering. In the link above she doesn't get higher than 4.

The algorithms and data upon which NF bases its renewal decisions is famously opaque. They appear to focus on completion rate, ie the % of viewers who start a season and complete it. Anything over 60% completion has a decent chance of being renewed BUT they have chosen not to review shows with a 70% + completion rate so it's likely there's another metric they're not disclosing (or any other production decisions of course).

Something like WLM, I'd imagine a lot of people start it to see what the fuss is about/"hate watch" (to use the Gen Z phrase)/laugh at it. Such viewers tend not to watch all episodes so wouldn't count towards completion rate.

I'd not put too much store by WLM appearing in Top 10 Most Popular list. There have been multiple criticisms levelled at NF to the effect that this list is not a real indicator of genuine popularity but is manipulated to get FOMO eyeballs on something they want to promote.

In general NF's algorithmic decisions are highly opaque and I believe a number of their stated stats around popularity are manipulated. All streaming platforms do this. The only stats they don't manipulate are the numbers they report to their investors.

If you want to read more about NF algo manipulation as a way of manipulating public taste, these are some good starting points:

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137270061_4

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2023/01/05/the-hidden-reason-netflix-keeps-cancelling-shows-like-1899/?sh=50fc9efd1a09

@GiveMeSpanakopita

I'm not a psychologist, and not really very interested in diagnosing people I don't know on the internet.

You're a pretty unique person on Mumsnet because of that and it's probably why your posts are interesting.
You know what you're talking about.

MN (not only the RF topic) is stuffed with people who can spot "narcs" and various alphabet combinations of diagnoses from a couple of typed posts.
Everyone's a psychologist/psychiatrist (and I bet most don't know the difference between the two).

@LaMarschallin
I think people do armchair diagnoses, it's fairly popular on here. I'd prefer to judge people on their actions, which is what I do with the Sussexes. I have no idea how to spot a "narc". I can spot a hypocrite, though

It might be a bit of a reach but in the Oprah interview, Harry said the reason they made deals with Netflix was because Charles had cut him off financially and they needed to make money . Maybe Meghan is resentful that they were made 'destitute' (🙄) and was 'forced' to get a job to make ends meet.
A bit like some women have to get a second job because their hopeless husbands can't hold a job down.
Which is why there seems to be an undercurrent of tension in the programmes.

You're probably right. She obviously thought her marriage was a ticket to limitless wealth. Hence why all the snark about where they lived, which was too modest, and being cut off by the Bank of Pa.

I'm not sure it's hypocrisy so much as judging others by what they do themselves. Because they use the media to try and manipulate public opinion, they assume others do too.

For example the bullies I knew at work used Facebook as a weapon to spread lies, so when I left they were trying to check my FB page to see if I put anything up, even though I rarely use it and never have used it that way. It was also a fairly obvious accusation from that tha people had put things on FB against them. I was friends with the people and they never had put anything at all.