Viewers’ verdict in on Meghan Markle’s cooking show
The shock viewing figures for Meghan Markle’s much-hyped Netflix series have been revealed after the show was slammed by critics.
Season two of Meghan Markle’s lifestyle Netflix show flopped after being eviscerated by UK critics.
The eight-episode second instalment of With Love, Meghan, which dropped on August 26, did not make the streamer’s Top 10 list for the week of August 25 to August 31, Forbes reported.
While Netflix does not release weekly viewing data for shows outside of its 10 most popular, Forbes noted that Meghan’s show had to have been watched by 500,000 fewer viewers than the first season in its first week.
According to the outlet, 2.6 million people watched With Love, Meghan season one when it debuted in March 2024, reports Page Six.
The drop in popularity follows a wave of criticism of Meghan’s series from across the pond.
After its premiere, The Guardian’s Lucy Mangan slammed the program as “so boring,” “so painfully contrived” and “so effortfully whimsical” that it “does become almost fascinating.”
Mangan also credited guest Chrissy Teigen with being the “high point” of the show, arguing that she and other celebrities who made cameos weren’t “paid enough.”
The Times issued a similarly scathing take on the renegade royal’s show, referring to the host as “a woman in need of some cash.”
Hilary Rose told the outlet that the “baffling” series occupied “the sweet spot where irrelevant meets intolerable” and made her “rock back and forth in a darkened room.”
Meanwhile, Anita Singh from the Telegraph labelled With Love, Meghan as “tone-deaf” because the “episode about cocktail-making in Malibu is dedicated to the first responders and victims of the California wildfires.”
Though Singh called the “Montecito Marie Antoinette” a “needy” host, she did highlight Meghan “drop[ping] her Type-A perfection” and seeming “relatively normal” in some “self-deprecating” and “likeable” moments.
The former actress, 44, responded to the hate in an interview with Emily Chang, explaining, “I knew who I was trying to meet. If you know your audience, you know your demographic, they loved the show. My partners loved the show. That’s why they have a Season 2 and why we have more fun coming.”
She cheekily added, “Are they saying negative things and then going home and secretly making single skillet spaghetti? Possibly.”
With Love, Meghan was part of the $A152 million Netflix deal that Meghan and her husband, Prince Harry, landed in 2020 after they stepped down from their royal duties and moved to California.
Page Six reported last month that the couple had recently extended their partnership with the streamer — but for an amount that is “much” less and therefore poses “no risk for Netflix” while saving them both “reputationally.”
It comes just a week after it emerged that Meghan has quietly closed her online style storefront.
Meghan has removed all items from her profile on ShopMy – a site where “online creators” can earn extra cash by promoting a curated selection of clothing.
The Duchess of Sussex launched her site in March amid a flurry of other business ventures – including her often sold out As Ever lifestyle range.
However, while the line of jams and other little luxuries is still going strong, the ShopMy page – which was once filled with a range of hand-picked items of clothing ranging from designer to affordable – now sits empty.
The disappearance was even more puzzling given Meghan only referenced the ShopMy site in a recent interview with Bloomberg where she referred to it as an “interesting exploration” which allowed her fans to “emulate the style” she has become know for.
Visitors to the site are now met with a message which states “no collections found.”
Part of this article originally appeard on Page Six of the New York Post
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