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Meghan Markle began the year with a giddy Instagram post encouraging fans to expect big things from her in the year ahead but ends it with a fist full of agonizingly bad reviews of her Netflix show.<\/p>\n
In 2025, the Duchess of Sussex pivoted to being a lifestyle<\/a> influencer with a TV show, With Love, Meghan<\/em>, a podcast<\/a> about business, Confessions of a Female Founder<\/em>, and an online shop, As Ever.<\/p>\n However, she closes out the year still with everything to prove on the back of bad reviews and TikTok parodies, though on the plus side she has fixed some of the teething problems with her store.<\/p>\n The first step in Meghan’s reinvention came with her return to Instagram on January 1, when she posted a video<\/a> showing her run across a beach and then mark “2025” in the sand with her finger.<\/p>\n Over the course of the year, she used her account to announce a rebrand of her lifestyle business from American Riviera Orchard to As Ever, writing: “In two weeks, my series on @netflix launches\u2014but there\u2019s something else I\u2019ve been working on. I\u2019m thrilled to introduce you to As Ever\u2014a brand that I created and have poured my heart into. <\/p>\n “\u2018As ever\u2019 means \u2018as it\u2019s always been\u2019 or some even say \u2018in the same way as always\u2019. If you\u2019ve followed along since my days of creating The Tig, you\u2019ll know this couldn\u2019t be truer for me. This new chapter is an extension of what has always been my love language, beautifully weaving together everything I cherish\u2014food, gardening, entertaining, thoughtful living, and finding joy in the everyday.”<\/p>\n And she sparked headlines with a video of her heavily pregnant in hospital attempting to induce labor by doing the “Baby Momma” dance, popularized by Starrkeisha.<\/p>\n In March, Season One of her Netflix<\/a> cooking show, With Love, Meghan<\/em>, dropped, in which she presented a one pot pasta dish with chard and tomatoes and made her own bath salts to give to a guest.<\/p>\n The reviews, however, were scathing. It was always expected that she would get a rough ride in the British press but the big story of the release was the reaction of U.S. outlets that had previously been positive about her.<\/p>\n Chief among them was Vulture<\/em>, whose critic went as far as affirming Meghan’s narrative about her royal exit before taking no prisoners in relation to With Love<\/em>.<\/p>\n “With Love, Meghan<\/em> is an utterly deranged bizarro world voyage into the center of nothing,” wrote reviewer Kathryn VanArendonk, “a fantastical monument to the captivating power of watching one woman decorate a cake with her makeup artist while communicating solely through throw-pillow adages about joy and hospitality.<\/p>\n “It is painfully defensive. Meghan comes across as constantly worried about what people will think, and because of it, the show can neither flaunt her unusual life, nor can it embrace legitimate ordinariness.”<\/p>\n The other major reaction came in the form of TikTok parodies of the duchess, which particularly focused on the idea she was out of her depth. Among the most viral moments from the show came when she took Trader Joe’s Peanut Butter Filled Pretzels out of their original packet and put them in a new clear plastic bag which she marked with her guest’s name.<\/p>\n Elsewhere, some were confused by a moment when actress Mindy Kaling referred to the duchess as Meghan Markle<\/a> only for Meghan to correct her, saying “you know I’m Sussex now.”<\/a><\/p>\nMeghan Markle Returns to Instagram<\/h2>\n
Meghan the Lifestyle Influencer<\/h2>\n