Meghan hit with worst possible video

With only days until the Duchess of Sussex’s big TV comeback, the trailer for another series is making things very awkward.

John Cleese, when asked where he got his ideas, once said, “I buy them from a little old woman who lives round the corner.”

Maybe a whole bunch of TV execs and producers have all been buying up big from the same old woman too?

Today we have a real mystery, a real whodunnitfirst, a brain tickling puzzler of a thing with two new shows having or about to come and which are uncannily similar.

We are now only eight sleeps away until Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex finally arrives on our TV screens to save us from our quotidian, Uber Eats-ed lives and to teach us the path unto enlightenment lies the way of hand-pressed Tuscan olive oil and artfully arranged petunias.

The Duchess of Sussex shared the official trailer of the eight-part Netflix series on her newly-active social media account called ‘Meghan’, which she first shared her first post on during New Year’s Day.

However, another show starring a former major TV star that is all about marinating in the joys of homemaking and blissed out wandering around veggie patches has already debuted.

The two new shows, based on their trailers, bear an eerie resemblance to one another.

Has Pamela Anderson just accidentally derailed Meghan’s big relaunch?

Yes, that Pamela Anderson, she of 90s red cossie fame and who is currently enjoying a glorious second act as an unabashedly feminist hero for slapping away the makeup trowel and has just proven she really act with her critically acclaimed turn in The Last Showgirl.

It’s time to play a lightning round of spot-the-difference.

Anderson has a show out this week, and which will launch in Australia tomorrow, called Pamela’s Cooking With Love; The duchess’ is called With Love, Meghan.

Meghan picks produce from her garden...

...as does Pam in her new show.

In February 2023 it was announced that the former Baywatch actor was making an eight-part series that would see her “working with chefs on plant-based menus and preparing meals for her family and friends”.

In January 2025, Netflix announced that Meghan had made an eight-part series that would see her cooking with “acclaimed chefs” “as she prepares to host friends both old and new.

Both shows seem to promise to show us the hitherto unseen getting-back-to-basics side of two very famous women as they glory in banging pots and pans and ambling around their personal kale crops.

The colour palettes of both shows are all matt, rich greens and the aesthetic is all straw hats and them wandering through verdant gardens ripe with baskets bursting with ripe, juicy produce.

Both series seem to have a focus on the exclusive wide open spaces which each woman calls home – Vancouver Island and Montecito slash Santa Barbara county.

Meghan high-fives a guest chef...

...as does Pam.

Both series were filmed in idyllic whitewashed properties and see renowned James Beard Award-winning gourmets pop by to help the former TV stars whip delicious plates of goodness. Both women, in the trailers, can be seen marvelling over cheffy creations and fangirling over major foodie names.

In Meghan’s series, she makes candles and arranges flowers. Ms Anderson told the Flavour Network this month, “I love to make candles and flower arrangements”.

In the trailer for With Love, Meghan says, “I’m gonna share some little tips and tricks”. Anderson has said her show will teach “all these entertaining little tips”.

The voiceover for With Love promises, “This is about connecting with friends”. Anderson told the Toronto Sun that her show was about her “authentic, true love of family and friends”.

The Netflix marketing guff has promised that the duchess’ show “highlights how easy it can be to create beauty”; Ms Anderson told the Flavour Network her show was about “making beautiful things”.

The similarities between the two shows have led to claims Meghan ripped off Pamela.

Curiously, in Ms Anderson’s 2024 cookbook I Love You: Recipes From The Heart she has a recipe for edible flower ice cubes; in the With Love trailer, there is a lingering shot of … edible flower ice cubes. Last year Meghan, under her American Riviera Orchard (ARO) brand sent out homemade dog biscuits; I Love You features two dog biscuit recipes. ARO’s trademark application last year mentioned jellies, jams and nut butters; Ms Anderson’s book has recipes for sweet peach jam and superfood roasted nut butter.

I could go on here but there is only so much time you can talk about people who make a mockery of us normals’ plastic tubs of fast-caking tzatziki and drying out rice crackers when a-entertaining we go.

So which came first, the chicken-loving duchess or Ms Anderson’s animal-free egg? Who beat who to the lemon verbena punch?

Meghan Markle new social media video post.

Her show goes live soon.

What is known is that Ms Anderson’s series was shot in the northern summer of 2023 in Canada, according to The Hollywood Reporter, and With Love was filmed around eight months later in 2024 in California.

I have no idea, and I’ll leave it up to far more informed minds than me to weigh in on this whether there is any way these two productions could have cross pollinated or if they could realistically have had any clue what the other was doing or whether this is all simply rotten luck.

For Meghan, this Pamela’s Cooking situation, unfortunately scuppers being able to sell With Love as painfully original and groundbreaking and instead makes it look as stale as three-day-old sourdough. Back in January, Netflix promised that the duchess’ show would be “inspiring” but how much inspiration will the world get from a format and show that has a doppelganger?

This is not the first time With Love’s freshness has been called into question. Positively seconds after the trailer dropped on January 2, eagle-eyed sorts had beadily spotted the likeness with the Marchioness of Bath’s YouTube series, Emma’s Kitchen which has been around since 2015.

Meghan Markle's new Netflix series.

Both the marchioness and duchess are women of colour who married into ancient British families and both series feature the women wearing florally frocks as they dish on how to host the perfect afternoon tea. Both shows have promo shots showing them in bluey dresses lovingly tend to the table.

Both women get their hands doughy making focaccia in episodes –

For Meghan, this Pamela Anderson jam (insert groan here) comes at a particularly precarious time for her after having attempted to pull off quite the switcheroo last week, binning her never-launched ARO and replacing it with As Ever.

Only As Ever then nearly ran into immediate problems with a Mallorcan town talking about legal action over the brand’s logo’s unnerving likeness to their own and it turning out there is already a New York clothing label called As Ever.

The problems have kept mounting.

Page Six has reported that Meghan’s As Ever product range launch “won’t be ready” to go on sale until months after With Love’s debut, which hardly seems an ideal way to capitalise on momentum and buzz. It has previously been reported that rather than a wide scale rollout, As

Ever products will only be stocked at two Netflix House shops in mega malls in Dallas and Philadelphia.

Adding to the duchess’ commercial woes, the Daily Mail has reported that As Ever had been banned from selling clothes under the name, with the US patent office deeming the name too similar to others including a Chinese fast fashion label called ASEVER.

Over the weekend Meghan posted a series of Instagram stories of her in her garden, including one shot showing her wearing a purple jumper from Northwestern University. (The duchess went to college there.) Only it was exactly the same jumper as famously worn by Diana, Princess of Wales, a similarity that the internet immediately jumped on.

Maybe that old lady around the corner is still doing brisk business?

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

Originally published as Meghan hit with worst possible video