Sad truth behind glam new Meghan Markle photo

The Duchess of Sussex’s big smile as she left an LA restaurant hides the reality of what’s going on behind the scenes.

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Whoever knew a slump could look so damn good?

In recent days, the paparazzi of Los Angeles have been out and about doing the important service journalism of photographing Meghan the Duchess of Sussex exiting and clambering back aboard hulking great black SUVs.

On Friday, LA time, Meghan was papped, first having lunch with her wedding dress designer, former Givenchy head Clare Waight Keller, and then at dinner with Terry Wood, the executive producer of Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Productions. (Wood also executive produced the duchess and husband Prince Harry the Duke of Sussex’s 2021 Winfrey interview.)

The crux of the matter: These outings came only hours apart.

Meghan Markle was all smiles as she was spotted leaving Cipriani restaurant in LA. Picture: Backgrid

What this means is that Meghan made the two-hour drive from her Montecito home to dine at two restaurants known for attracting celebrities within the span of half a day, both at which there were snappers, with her having changed outfits in between meals.

The duchess’ willingness to brave the lenses of the city’s infamous paps twice in one day to be seen ordering $68 plates of Chilean sea bass begs the question, just why was Meghan doing all of this conspicuous Hollywood power lunching?

The duke and duchess’ attempts to stage something of a brand reboot this month have seen them come in for plenty of blowback for their new ‘royal’ website, put noses out of joint in London, the couple issue a testy statement via rep, and the former Suits star sign with a little known podcasting company. That deal is the first one that the Duchess of Sussex has signed in nearly three years.

Meghan and Harry appear to be on something of a rebrand/comeback tour. Picture: Marcus Ingram/Getty Images

While King Charles and Kate the Princess of Wales’ health travails have dominated the royal world for much of this year, back in the land of manicured lawns and power colonics, Meghan and husband Prince Harry the Duke of Sussex having been having a squally old time of it.

On Monday, new polling by Redfield & Wilson for Newsweek revealed that Meghan’s US popularity has plummeted in only a matter of months. In December, the 42-year old was sitting on a net approval rating of +15. (She was liked by 45 per cent of respondents and disliked by 23 per cent.)

The latest numbers have Meghan have slid to a net rating of +1, with her liked by 31 percent and disliked by 30 per cent as of February.

Interestingly, this polling was done only days after Harry and Meghan unveiled their brand new website, sussex.com, their fourth online ‘home’ in less than five years. (According to the Times, and despite the new site boasting little content besides the couple’s bios, it “is understood to have taken a year to build”. Dear lord. Was some developer hang-quarrying every pixel and byte?)

It was a branding volte face for the ages. Gone was the “Just call me Harry” of February 2020 (as he told a tourism conference in Edinburgh weeks after Megxit) and personal notes about being “my mother’s son” of yore

The new site is grandly billed as being operated by “The Office of The Duke and Duchess of Sussex” and features overt, energetic usage of the duchess’ coat-of-arms and their titles being judiciously slapped all over the shop.

(Scott Moore, the new CEO for the 2025 Invictus Games told a British Columbia newspaper that ahead of their recent trip to Whistler he had been told to address the couple with a “simple sir and ma’am”. I wonder what Gloria Steinem, who gave Meghan a bracelet bearing one of her famous quotes, “We are linked not ranked” might have made of all this.)

Just call us sir and ma’am. Picture: Andrew Chin/Getty Images

Buckingham Palace didn’t seem particularly impressed by the duke and duchess sailing quite so close to the bounds of the late Queen’s ruling they could not brand themselves as “royal” with a source telling the Telegraph that The Firm’s “hands are tied” in regards to a possible crack down.

Biographer Hugo Vickers told the Telegraph: “They said they would not trade on their royal status, and this is very much doing so.”

All of this blowback, in turn, seemed to only rile up the Sussexes with a representative for Harry and Meghan telling the Mirror: “This couple will not be broken.”

(And the prize for most over-egged, overly dramatic comment goes to …)

So much for the great 2024 relaunch.

One of the late Queen’s trusty, fallback lines when meeting one of the unwashed masses, “And what do you do?”

It’s a question that is just as applicable here. Because what is Meghan doing?

Last year the Sussexes and their great audio dreams were given the old heave ho by Spotify but earlier this month (buh buh buh buhhhhhhhhhhh!) came the news that the Duchess of Sussex had signed with podcasting company Lemonada Media.

‘Who?’ every single person outside of the entertainment industry asked.

While Lemonada’s founders have serious pedigree and an enviable stable of on-air stars, the five-year-old company is a far cry, size-wise, from Meghan’s previous podcasting partner.

The deal might have been publicised with all the expected upbeat sugar-coating you would imagine, it is hard to see how this did not constitute something of a climb down in the power (and cashola) stakes.

Meghan Markle has moved her podcast from Spotify to little known Lemonada.

The status of Harry and Meghan’s Netflix contract remains a subject of intense speculation. While they are reported to have a series of projects on the boil for the streaming giant, Alison Boshoff has now reported in the Daily Mail of their adaptation of the best-selling book Meet Me At The Lake, “there is no script yet and it’s not clear if the couple have settled on a writer.’

Widen the lens and the duchess has, aside from Lemonada, not announced any new deals or commercial partnerships since 2021 when her children’s book The Bench was published.

So come full circle back to Friday, LA time, and Meghan’s big day out of high-end eateries and dressing-on-the-side requests. Her outfits were fashion perfection, her smile wide, her dining companions suitably noteworthy names. The woman is good at this – damn good at this.

Will Netflix stick with the Sussexes? Will Meghan make any more podcasts? And will my editor make me listen to all of them despite the risk of aural bleeding? When the End of Days comes, let us all immediately look to Montecito. She will know exactly what to wear.

Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and a royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.

Originally published as Sad truth behind glam new Meghan Markle photo