On the last day of filming for her new Netflix cookery and lifestyle series, the Duchess of Sussex gathered together the production team and thanked them all with a present.
Each of them received a piece of cookware made by her friend Shiza Shahid’s Los Angeles-based company Our Place, a brand so achingly fashionable that it once had 30,000 people on a waiting list for its much-vaunted Always Pan after being championed by luminaries such as Oprah Winfrey, Cameron Diaz, David Beckham, and Selena Gomez.
“She gave a speech on the last day of filming and graciously gifted Our Place pans and wooden spoons for the entire crew and engraved them in her own handwriting,” a source close to the production said, remarking on how Meghan had proved easy to work with despite her reputation for being a demanding boss. “It’s a tight-knit group and she made everybody feel welcome.”
The gesture, like the upcoming eight-part Netflix series – With Love, Meghan – is all about the West Coast lifestyle which the 43-year-old Duchess has fully re-embraced since quitting our shores five years ago and settling eventually in the upmarket celebrity enclave of Montecito, 90 miles north of Los Angeles, where the Sussexes’ £11m, nine-bedroom home, the Chateau of Riven Rock, comfortably exceeds the average £6m cost of a property.
The Sussexes’ friends are keen to stress that this is a woman playing to her strengths, returning to what she does best after a difficult few years. Meghan will certainly be hoping for a positive reception after President Donald Trump’s recent attack on her as a “terrible” wife.
Meghan, like her husband Harry, 40, has made little secret of her reservations about the new US President in the past and his latest comments suggest the feeling is mutual. But, in spite of his public criticism of the couple and his threats to support legal action if it is established that the fifth in line to the throne lied about previous drug use when he applied for a visa to live in the United States, the Sussexes are unlikely to get involved in party politics, The i Paper understands.
They agreed to uphold the values of Queen Elizabeth II when they left Britain in 2020 and, in spite of occasional reports to the contrary and a diplomatic spat over what Buckingham Palace saw as their unwarranted intervention in the 2020 US presidential election campaign, friends insist that Meghan has no interest in standing for election for the Democratic Party.
But now the couple have vowed that they will not allow the even more polarised political climate in the US under Trump to undermine their efforts to support liberal values. “They are committed to their collective mission of ‘showing up and doing good’ in the world,” according to a well-placed source, as demonstrated by their visits to the Invictus Games in Canada this month and to Colombia and Nigeria last year.
They are determined to stick by their chosen causes, “uplifting those they support, advocating for mental health, promoting sustainable practices, and pushing for social justice”, said the source.
Meghan’s immediate focus is on the Netflix show. “She’s very excited about it and we all think it’s going to be really well received,” one friend said. In the show she is seen sharing tips and tricks for hosting at home with her glamorous friends, including her Suits co-star Abigail Spencer, actress Mindy Kaling, make-up artist Daniel Martin, fashion designer Tracy Robbins, and the Argentine photographer Delfina Blaquier, wife of the polo player Nacho Figueras.
Accompanying the series, the Duchess has her own brand of products, originally called American Riviera Orchard but now renamed As Ever after some well-publicised problems trademarking the original name. The television series, like her decision to rename the company from which she will sell products such as cutlery, textiles, tablewear, jellies and jams in partnership with Netflix, is a rebrand, heralded by Meghan’s return to social media under a new Instagram handle – @meghan – on 1 January.
It is the type of rebrand in which you take two steps backwards to eventually go forwards. She may not have returned to acting in a television drama series but the former Suits star, who once had a lifestyle blog called The Tig, described as a hub for the discerning palate – the name was short for her favourite Italian red wine Tiganello – has attempted to rediscover what made her happy and successful a decade ago.
“I think we are seeing her as she was before. When she had The Tig and was on Suits, she was doing morning show cooking segments,” the source close to the production said, recalling that she regularly appeared on Canadian television and in 2016 on NBC’s The Today Show in the US.
In a video uploaded to her Instagram account, Meghan said: “As Ever essentially means as it’s always been, and if you’ve followed me since 2014 with The Tig, you know, I’ve always loved cooking and crafting and gardening.
“This is what I do, and I haven’t been able to share it with you in the same way for the past few years but now I can.”
The As Ever partnership with Netflix suggests that the streaming company remains confident about working with the Sussexes, despite regular reports claiming that bosses there are frustrated with the couple and view them as drinking in the Last Chance Saloon.
Certainly, some long-time Royal and Hollywood observers have framed the cookery and lifestyle show as a make-or-break moment for the couple after Prince Harry’s five-part series on Polo failed to attract big audiences and their deal with Spotify, estimated to be worth £18m in late 2020, ended after one 12-part podcast series by Meghan.
“I don’t know what they’ll do if this doesn’t work,” said Sally Bedell Smith, a distinguished American Royal biographer who has repeatedly compared the Sussexes to the Duke and Duchess of Windsor (albeit with different politics).
However, Netflix has insisted it has more projects in the pipeline for the couple and industry insiders in the past few days have suggested that, while Harry and Meghan need to earn their money and bring in the revenue, there is a fair bit more patience with the couple there than they have been credited with so far.
Bela Bajaria, Netflix’s influential chief content officer, has thrown her support behind With Love, Meghan ahead of the appearance of all eight episodes on our screens on 4 March. “It is such a great take on a lifestyle show and showcase for California, Montecito, and nature,” she told the Daily Mail earlier this month.
It was because the show, filmed at various locations, is so much about California that the couple and Netflix bosses agreed to postpone its original launch in January as large areas of Los Angeles battled wildfires.
At the time the Royal couple were helping fire relief efforts and friends who had lost their homes. To have launched a show on 15 January which is essentially saying look how beautiful this Californian house and garden are would have been crass, they and Netflix believed.
It would not have sat well with the social activism espoused by the couple and their friends, including Shahid, who co-founded the Malala Fund, and moved to the US from Pakistan after winning a scholarship to Stanford.
She and Meghan ostensibly inhabit a different type of America to the one championed by President Trump. Our Place, for instance, makes its cookware in China – in a factory run by a “kickass woman”, according to the company’s website – and other products are manufactured in Mexico, both countries targeted by Trump’s tariffs.
For Meghan, like her sister-in-law the Princess of Wales, the TV work and the causes come behind her first priority – her husband and their two children, Prince Archie, five, and three-year-old Princess Lilibet – but there will still be a number of new projects for her launching in 2025.
And while at one level she and Harry appear to have separated out their working lives as part of a rebrand, they are still expected to undertake overseas trips together and champion some causes jointly. “Supporting communities is at the heart of their endeavours,” said the source. “That will continue.”
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