Meghan Markle needs a hit.
If she is lucky, she may have one soon. She has finished filming her new cookery and home show, The Daily Beast understands, meaning her as yet untitled new project could soon be appearing on Netflix.
A Hollywood source told The Daily Beast: “It all went well and it is in the can.”
A spokesperson for Meghan declined to comment to The Daily Beast when asked if filming had finished. Neither the streamer nor Meghan’s team have said when the new series will air or what it will be called, however Meghan has said it will “celebrate the joys of cooking & gardening, entertaining, and friendship.”
Meghan was recently spotted by one TikTok user filming in a Beverly Hills park. The industry insider said that while it was possible that the show might need a few extra shots, they suspected that the filming uploaded to TikTok was unrelated to the home show project as the team had “got everything” they needed.
The Daily Beast has been told that filming has now ceased at a residential property just a few miles from Meghan and Prince Harry’s own home which was being used as a principal set for the show.
While the decision on when to transmit the new show will ultimately be down to the streaming giant, Meghan will likely be eager to make a start on her new career as a home and lifestyle guru in the mold of Martha Stewart or Gwyneth Paltrow as soon as possible.
And there is no denying that a slam-dunk smash hit would be extremely helpful, after a perceived failure to follow through coherently and profitably with her various initiatives and businesses in recent years.
On her 40th birthday, in 2021, Meghan announced that she had invited 40 of her friends to offer 40 minute mentorship sessions to individuals and encouraged others to do the same.
“Because I’m turning 40, I’m asking 40 friends to donate 40 minutes of their time to help mentor a woman who is mobilizing back into the workforce,” Meghan said in a video announcement at the time. She said the “act of service” would “create a ripple effect,” but nothing was ever heard of the program again.
An aide for Meghan did not respond to a query about 40X40.
Whilst it could be argued that 40X40 was only ever meant to be a one-off initiative (and it was structured around post-pandemic economic recovery), the fact is that there were no updates, progress reports, or tangible outcomes shared with the public, suggesting it had no actual impact, let alone sustainability.
It therefore fits the critic’s narrative of Meghan’s modus operandi: high-profile announcements which promise much with great fanfare, but ultimately deliver little.
The list is long, beginning, arguably, with the way the couple announced their exit from the royal family, publishing grand plans for their “new model” of being semi-private royals without getting it agreed by the royal family, and then being forced into a humiliating retreat on almost every issue several months later—including being stripped of their HRH titles and accepting a ban on using the word “royal” in their branding.
The couple had some bad luck, in that the pandemic shut down the world immediately after they left the family, but that hardly explains the string of projects presented either as businesses or philanthropic efforts involving high-profile personalities which have seemingly vanished without much of a trace.
Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex attend the 2022 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Ripple of Hope Award Gala in New York City, U.S., December 6, 2022.
Andrew Kelly/Reuters
Most glaring of these was the podcast deal with Spotify which produced minimal content and failed to create a significant buzz, but their Netflix output has also been slight, apart from the Harry & Meghan documentary, which was really a first-person rehashing of their grievances with the royal family.
The latest big splash, of course, is Meghan’s new brand, American Riviera Orchard (ARO). ARO jam has been all over social media but, two months later, there seems to be not a single ARO product available in any shops, leaving potential consumers fascinated, to be sure, but with their wallets still intact.
One expert on the intersection of talent and business, the PR consultant Mark Borkowski, told The Daily Beast, “The issue is Meghan’s ability to generate actual money. That is dependent on the quality of this new show. I suspect it won’t be a car crash; there is too much riding on it and she is being repped by the most powerful talent agency in the world, who will have gathered the right people around her.
“If she has listened and learnt and is comfortable in this new role as a kind of sub-Martha Stewart, sub-Oprah, this could be a relaunch to something new and interesting.
“If it is another fail, it will be more difficult, because she will have to pivot to yet another new direction. But the bottom line is that whatever Meghan Markle does will always generate massive interest, she brings eyeballs and that means there is a long line of people who would still want to align with her. She will always attract somebody who will want to leverage her brand.”
