An Open Letter to Meghan Markle

Written By Sara Alba
Disclaimer: This is satire and opinion-based cultural commentary. It reflects public information, media coverage, and personal observations. It is not a statement of fact about private individuals, not a diagnosis, and not legal advice. Please do not sue me, Meghan. I can barely commit to folding laundry.

Dear Meghan,

You looked gorgeous at the Fifteen Percent Pledge fundraising gala at Paramount Studios on February 7, 2026, the one where you went full Old Hollywood and popped up alongside Emma Grede like a high-gloss reminder that you are, technically, still famous.

And this is the exact problem.

You can still do the moment. You can still do the photo. You can still do the entrance. You can still do the dress. You can still do the gleaming, camera-ready version of relevance.

What you cannot do, apparently, is the follow-through.

I have watched this in real time, for years, like it’s my second job and my first job is being annoyed. The saga is all neatly filed under my Royals archive, where I have already asked the obvious questions in different fonts:

I am not bringing this up to be mean. I’m bringing it up because it is genuinely impressive to watch someone hold a royal flush and still ask the dealer if she can draw seven more cards.

The gala was a flex. The strategy is missing.

The coverage was breathless, as it always is when you wear something structured and expensive and show up in a room full of people who also monetize ambition. People, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, InStyle, Elle, WWD all did their part: “Old Hollywood,” “glamour,” “solo appearance,” “statement look,” “front table,” “star-studded.”

And sure. It worked. You were photographed. You were discussed. You were placed neatly back into the celebrity ecosystem. Emma Grede was there too, which is basically shorthand for “we are doing commerce and power and women’s entrepreneurship now.”

But here’s my question, in the plainest language possible:

Why do you only show up like this when it’s time to be seen, not when it’s time to build?

Because your career pattern is not “reinvention.” It’s “pre-launch.”

You keep auditioning for a role you already got

You already won the game. You married into the most famous family on earth. You walked away and still kept the global attention. You had the kind of name recognition most founders would sell an organ for.

Then you did the one thing you can’t do with cultural capital: you treated it like it was infinite.

You made “privacy” the brand while filming the documentary. You made “authenticity” the pitch while staying allergic to specificity. You made “female empowerment” the headline while shipping projects that feel like they were approved by a committee of publicists in a beige conference room.

That’s why your Aspire appearance with Emma Grede landed like a corporate onboarding video. Not because you were on a podcast. Because you were still speaking in the language of a brand deck, not a human being.

And it’s why so many of your ventures have felt like expensive trailers for movies that never come out.

“As Ever” is a vibe. Vibes do not scale.

Let’s talk about As Ever. Not the aesthetic, the actual thing.

The problem is not jam. I am not mad at jam. I am mad at the idea that you can softly release a lifestyle brand into the world like a scented candle and expect people to project meaning onto it forever.

Your own site copy (and the public coverage around it) has never fully clarified what As Ever is supposed to be. Even when it appears to exist, it feels like it’s pausing, “restocking,” “getting ready,” “perfecting.” In other words, permanently hovering.

You cannot build a business on the promise of being almost ready.

This is why As Ever: A Masterclass in Selling Pretty, Tasteless Nothing hit a nerve. Because it captured the core issue: presentation without product.

And before anyone screams “misogyny,” please relax. I critique men too. Men just usually give us fewer artisanal preserves.

The Emma Grede factor should have helped. It didn’t.

Emma Grede is not a random celebrity friend. She’s a business operator with real credibility, the kind of person who knows how to scale, position, and actually ship. So when you show up with her, or sit across from her, it’s supposed to signal: “I’m serious now.”

Which is why it’s so wild that the seriousness never arrives.

Instead, the podcast moment became another performance of competence. Lots of founder language. Lots of empowerment language. Very little substance that sticks.

It’s the same reason your brand story keeps slipping out of your hands. You want the authority without the vulnerability. You want the prestige without the boring work. You want the glow-up without the awkward middle.

And the awkward middle is where actual careers live.

You are still trying. That is both admirable and exhausting.

This is the part where I give you credit, because it’s true.

You do not quit. You keep showing up. You keep recalibrating. You keep trying to land the narrative.

There are plenty of celebrities who quietly fade and live off nostalgia. You refuse. You keep walking into rooms. You keep doing the events. You keep stepping onto carpets. You keep feeding the machine that you also claim to hate.

That contradiction is basically the Sussex brand at this point: you’re above it, but you also need it.

And I get it. Fame is a drug. So is attention. So is “one more rebrand.” I’m not even judging. I’m just observing the mess.

Which brings me back to the gala.

Because that night was the cleanest version of you: elegant, composed, visually coherent, surrounded by the kind of women who make money move and make headlines optional.

So why can you nail that and still fumble the bigger bag: the long-term trust of the public?

Here’s what you lost, and it wasn’t the palace

You didn’t lose relevance because you left the monarchy.

You lost relevance because you couldn’t decide what you wanted to be after leaving it.

You could have been the woman who walked away and built something undeniable. Something that did not require constant explanation. Something that didn’t rely on grievance or mystique or “exclusive sources” to feel important.

You could have built a modern media company. A serious philanthropic platform. A real brand with clear products, clear positioning, clear messaging. You had the runway.

Instead, you gave us the eternal soft launch.

That’s why the most accurate title in your entire era might still be Meghan Markle’s Brand: What Went Wrong and Why We’re Not Surprised.

Not because failure is inevitable. Because your pattern is.

The petty details matter because they expose the bigger truth

Yes, I’m going to mention clothes. Not because women should be reduced to clothes, but because you use clothes as messaging, and your messaging is constantly confused.

You’ve had moments where you looked sharp, expensive, intentional. And moments where you looked like your stylist ghosted you mid-zipper.

That’s why Why Meghan Markle’s Outfits Keep Missing the Mark exists.

Because your public image is a brand asset, and you treat it like it’s immune to pattern recognition.

People notice when the story doesn’t match the styling. People notice when you say “privacy” and then produce content. People notice when you say “authenticity” and then speak only in PR-approved generalities.

People notice. They always do.

A few questions you will not answer, so I will ask them anyway

  1. Why do you keep framing everything as a reinvention instead of admitting you’ve had missteps?

  2. Why do your projects feel like concept albums with no singles?

  3. Why is every launch either a documentary, a statement, or a lifestyle moodboard?

  4. Why does the work always feel adjacent to something real, instead of being the real thing?

  5. Why do you keep chasing “impact” as a brand adjective instead of proving it as a verb?

And the meanest question, the one I’m actually curious about:

Did you ever want the boring part, or did you only want the story about wanting it?

If you want a reset, here’s the brutal one

Stop explaining. Start building.

Pick one lane and commit long enough for it to get unglamorous. The public does not need more meaning. The public needs proof.

And if the proof is coming, please, for the love of all that is caffeinated, ship it.

Because you are not out of chances. You are just running out of patience.

Sincerely,
Sara
still watching, still confused, still capable of being impressed

Sara Alba
Next

Six Years Out: What Meghan Markle Built, What She Lost