How 2024 could be the year Meghan Markle will want to forget
She is the ultimate survivor, able to bounce back from most reputational disasters. But 2024 could well go down as the year Meghan Markle will want to forget.
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She is the ultimate survivor, able to bounce back from most reputational disasters.
But 2024 could well go down as the year Meghan Markle will want to forget.
A string of personal missteps and PR blunders resulted in a shocking 12 months for the Duchess of Sussex.
For the first time since their lavish 2018 royal wedding, cracks appeared in the seemingly impenetrable union of Meghan and husband Prince Harry.
On the business side, she failed to get her much-hyped lifestyle brand off the ground while speculation swirled that her Netflix cookery series was under threat.
Here’s how Meghan’s frantic and ultimately dismal year played out.
MARRIAGE SPLIT RUMOURS
Harry and Meghan’s Hollywood-glamour-meets-British-royalty union has long been hailed as the ultimate love story.
But 2024 signalled a major shift in the public’s perception of their marriage.
After loved-up displays during their faux royal tours of Nigeria and Colombia, the pair suddenly started making solo appearances at events in the latter part of the year.
Royal experts put the move down to a new PR strategy, which has led the couple to set up a “professional separation” in a bid to reshape their tarnished public image.
But the move was jarring in light of the fact that the pair — who famously once shared an office in their Montecito mansion — were previously joined at the hip in all aspects of their public lives.
Going it alone, single gal Meghan was spotted supporting her female friends in various projects during a string of glam appearances in the US.
She also hosted a Thanksgiving dinner for women from Afghanistan who had resettled in the US.
In another solo turn at a glitzy children’s hospital gala in Los Angeles, Meghan turned heads in a daringly low-cut — and decidedly non-royal — red dress by her favourite designer, Carolina Herrera.
Harry, meanwhile, raised eyebrows when he visited Vancouver solo in November to promote the 2025 Winter Invictus Games.
In unprecedented comments that no doubt irked the image-conscious Meghan, the bemused royal directly addressed the speculation about his marriage just weeks ago at the 2024 DealBook Summit in New York.
“Apparently we’ve bought or moved house 10, 12 times,” he dryly quipped. “We’ve apparently divorced maybe 10, 12 times as well. So it’s just like, what?’”
LIFESTYLE BRAND FLOUNDERS
Meghan’s relentless bid to outdo Goop founder and wellness queen Gwyneth Paltrow took another hit this year, with her fledgling American Riviera Orchard product line labelled a “multi-billion dollar problem”.
The much-discussed brand, which is set to include pricey jams, home decor and gourmet dog biscuits, was launched in March with an understated Instagram post and much celebrity fanfare from the likes of Oprah Winfrey and Kardashian “momager” Kris Jenner.
However, the luxury brand hit legal trouble just months later after Meghan’s application to have it trademarked was rejected when a similarly named company lodged a letter of protest with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
The brand, named after the nickname for the A-list playground of Santa Barbara, home to the Sussexes’s Montecito compound, is now tipped to launch sometime next year.
The couple also faced accusations of being elitist and out of touch, spruiking charity causes while maintaining their lavish lifestyles, luxury properties — including a newly acquired Portugal mansion — and private jets.
MAJOR PR BLUNDERS OVER KATE
As the world reeled from the devastating cancer diagnoses of King Charles and Princess Catherine, Meghan was accused of attempting to steal the spotlight in a time of crisis.
Following Catherine’s devastating video announcement in February that she was battling cancer, Meghan and Prince Harry were slammed for issuing a statement in which they referred to the future queen as “Kate” rather than her official title.
And in June, just hours before the world would get their first glimpse of the ailing princess in months, Prince Harry’s polo-playing friend Nacho Figueros posted a picture of Meghan’s new raspberry-flavoured American Riviera Orchard jam.
Never big on reading the room, Meghan and Harry again caused a stir earlier this month when they released their Archwell Foundation annual impact video on the same day the Princess of Wales undertook four major royal engagements.
NETFLIX SERIES IN DOUBT
As 2024 drew to a close, Meghan was reportedly so busy working on her upcoming Netflix cooking show she even missed the all-star 70th birthday bash of Oprah Winfrey’s bestie, Gayle King.
While her celebrity pals were schmoozing at the surprise party, Meghan was spotted in Beverly Hills, taking part in a photo shoot at a ritzy food store for the series, which was pitched as a celebration of‘ “the joys of cooking, gardening, entertaining, and friendship”.
However, Meghan’s passion project, part of her and Harry’s $159 million deal with the streaming giant, is now facing the axe.
Netflix bosses are believed to be thoroughly unimpressed with Prince Harry’s Polo, his five-part docu-series about the sport favoured by the super-rich.
Meghan made a brief appearance in the series, which was branded by critics as “tacky”, “tedious” and “unintentionally hilarious”.
It will come as a huge personal and professional blow to the pair, who are believed to have spent hours editing and filming the footage.
The fallout has cast serious doubt on whether Meghan’s cooking show will ever see the light of day.
Time will tell what the new year will bring, but Meghan will no doubt be hoping for a major turnaround from the dramas of 2024.
Originally published as How 2024 could be the year Meghan Markle will want to forget
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