Featured Image Credit: Jake Rosenberg/Netflix
Topics: Celebs, Entertainment, Meghan Markle, Netflix, Royal Tea, TV
Sarah Halle Corey
Topics: Celebs, Entertainment, Meghan Markle, Netflix, Royal Tea, TV
Meghan Markle’s long-awaited Netflix lifestyle show With Love, Meghan premiered on March 4, and the haters have come out to play. Now, don’t get me wrong, there are some good reviews of Meghan’s new TV show. But, there are also a bunch of people out there calling the Duchess of Sussex “insufferable,” and “The Duchess of Flops and Ratings Disasters.” Oof. She’s a long way from her time on Suits, which somehow became Netflix’s biggest hit of 2023, almost five years after it ended. Sadly, With Love, Meghan, is not doing as well, despite Meghan’s best efforts.
Listen, I’ll be honest: I think a little cringe can be endearing sometimes, and some of Meghan’s cringiest moments in With Love, Meghan stem from her utter earnestness about sharing her cooking and entertaining tips on her own show. That’s even how a friend helped Meghan come up with the name for the show.
“Their takeaway was they were so happy to see me as myself,’ Meghan told People. “She said, ‘It’s like your love letter to all the things you’ve loved to do, and if you’re signing off a love letter, it’s “With love, Meghan.”‘”
That love letter doesn’t always translate, though. These are the cringiest moments from With Love, Meghan that audiences have called out.
The first episode opens with Meghan harvesting honey from her personal bee hive, because the Duchess apparently isn’t going for relatable right away. As she collects her honey, she giggles and calls the little bugs “busy bees” who “work hard for the honey.” What do you call dad jokes when they’re said by a member of the royal family?
Then later in the first episode, Meghan goes for extremely relatable by emptying a bag of Trader Joe’s peanut butter pretzels into another bag and calling it a gift for her guest. I mean, same. But it’s not exactly the kind of lifestyle content people usually make an entire TV show about.
When Mindy visits in episode 2, she refers to her host as “Meghan Markle,” as most of us do. But when she does, Meghan visibly tenses up and tells Mindy she goes by “Meghan Sussex” now. It’s super awkward when Mindy realizes she misspoke, but she takes it in stride.
Meghan also fries up some bacon in episode 2 and tells the audience that whenever she makes it, her husband (aka Prince Harry) and dogs usually wind up in the kitchen with her. She then makes a reference to Kelis’ “Milkshake,” and says, “My bacon brings all the boys to the yard,” and it’s maybe the most millennial cringe moment of all time.
Meghan’s got one more song reference in her! This time, it’s in episode 7 when her friend Vicky Tsai says they’re going to make a slurry for the dumplings they’re frying up. Meghan says, “Slurry with a fringe on top,” which is a reference to the classic musical Oklahoma, something that probably went over the heads of the majority of viewers.
With Love, Meghan will not let the audience forget that Meghan makes her own jam — and that we can all buy it soon! Meghan is launching a lifestyle brand called As Ever (previously known as American Riviera Orchard), and its signature jam is featured in nearly every episode. But perhaps the cringiest product placement moment is in the last episode when Meghan makes shortbread cookies and tells the audience their cookies don’t have to be homemade. She says to the camera with a wink, “If you just want to buy one of those mixes, [cough] do it.” That’s right, you guessed it; As Ever has a shortbread mix you can buy very soon.