Meghan Markle’s New Show and Rebrand: Why It’s Bound to Flop (Again)
Disclaimer: This is an opinion piece based on publicly available information and media trends. It is not intended to defame, insult, or incite legal action from Meghan Markle, Prince Harry, or anyone in their orbit. If Meghan happens to be reading this—hi, please don't sue me.
With Love, Meghan.
With Fatigue, Everyone Else.
We wrote this when With Love, Meghan launched. We predicted the show would arrive exquisitely arranged and emotionally underseasoned. Season 2 failed to crack the Netflix top 10 anywhere in the world. Four seasons of Suits — off air for six years — ranked higher. We return with receipts.
The Prediction vs. The Reality
When we originally wrote this piece, With Love, Meghan had just launched. The show had crept into the Netflix top 10 at number ten — 2.6 million views in its first week, the barest margin of a result for a launch attached to one of the most globally discussed names in media. We wrote that the show arrived exquisitely arranged and emotionally underseasoned. We wrote that if it didn't offer something more human than branding, it wouldn't feel like a comeback. We wrote that it would feel like another centrepiece nobody actually touched.
Season 2 launched on August 26, 2025. Here is what happened.
"The show will arrive looking exquisitely arranged and emotionally underseasoned."
"A pattern of overhyped, undercooked ventures teaches audiences something dangerous: it teaches them not to believe you the next time."
"If this show doesn't offer something more human than branding, it won't feel like a comeback. It will feel like another centrepiece nobody actually touches."
Season 2 failed to crack the Netflix top 10 in the United States, the United Kingdom, or globally in its launch week.
Fewer than 1.11 million people watched in its first two days — the threshold below which Luminate's Top 50 Streaming Charts does not register a title.
For the second half of 2025: ranked #1,217 on Netflix. Four seasons of Suits — off air since 2019 — ranked higher. Netflix cancelled it.
The Numbers, Fully Documented
"With Love, Meghan was the 1,217th most-watched title on Netflix over the second half of 2025. Four seasons of Suits — the show Meghan left in 2017 to become a royal — ranked higher."
— Deadline, January 2026, citing Netflix What We Watched dataThe Full Timeline of the Show's Decline
Reaches #10 globally with 2.6 million views. Barely cracks the top ten. The show is positioned as the domestic, intimate, honest Meghan — jam, guests, Montecito warmth. Reviews are mixed. The lifestyle content is well-produced. The emotional connection fails to materialise at scale.
The first half of 2025 data dump places With Love, Meghan at #383 with 5.3 million views. For context: Adolescence received 145 million views. Squid Game Season 2 received 117 million. Meghan's lifestyle show received less than four percent of Squid Game's audience — while being positioned as a comparable prestige Netflix launch.
Days before Season 2 launches, Meghan issues a statement: "We're proud to extend our partnership with Netflix and expand our work together to include the As ever brand." The statement describes feeling "inspired" by the partnership. The statement does not mention viewership.
Guests include Chrissy Teigen, Tan France, Jay Shetty, José Andrés, David Chang, Christina Tosi, Samin Nosrat, and Clare Smyth. This is a credible, well-connected guest list. It generates no top-ten placement anywhere on earth. Fewer than 1.11 million people watch in the first two days — the minimum threshold for Luminate's Top 50 Streaming Charts is not reached.
In its long-tail performance from January to June 2025, With Love, Meghan ranked #383. Four seasons of Suits — the USA Network scripted drama Meghan left in 2017 to become a royal — ranked higher on Netflix despite having been off air for six years. This detail becomes the sentence that defines the show's critical legacy.
Netflix announces it will not continue the As Ever partnership. Ted Sarandos unfollows Meghan on Instagram. Bela Bajaria does the same. Variety publishes insiders saying "the mood in the building is we're done." The show will not have a third season.
What the Original Piece Got Right
We wrote that the show's central problem was not ambition but follow-through. That a pattern of overhyped, undercooked ventures teaches audiences not to believe you the next time. That the show would fail to make a convincing case for what only Meghan can offer in a crowded lifestyle space. That it would feel like another centrepiece nobody actually touches.
Season 1 scraped into the top 10 at number ten. Season 2 did not reach it. Season 3 was cancelled. The six-year arc of the Sussex project has now produced one genuinely successful content event (the Harry and Meghan documentary), one moderately watched lifestyle show, and a first-look deal that nobody appears to be describing with enthusiasm. The trajectory we identified before the numbers came in was the trajectory the numbers confirmed.
Why the Show Felt Off — The Analysis Holds
Too curated to feel warm — still true in Season 2
Season 2's guest list was stronger than Season 1's. The production quality remained high. The problem identified in the original piece — every frame lacquered, every exchange pre-approved, the viewer feeling managed rather than welcomed — remained the dominant critical response. Multiple reviewers noted that the show's warmth read as performed rather than felt. The guests were compelling. The host remained a curated presentation of a person rather than the person.
The Aspire with Emma Grede podcast appearance, which we covered separately, demonstrated that Meghan in a less managed format is marginally more interesting. The show's format did not allow for that version of her to surface. We went through the Aspire episode in detail. The central finding was the same: the brand keeps absorbing the person.
The "why her?" question — still unanswered
The lifestyle space in 2025 and 2026 is well-populated with people who have clearer authority, sharper points of view, and more distinctive culinary or domestic identities. The guest list for Season 2 — David Chang, Samin Nosrat, Christina Tosi, José Andrés — was itself an inadvertent illustration of the problem. These are people with genuine, verifiable expertise in food and hospitality. They are appearing on a show hosted by someone whose primary qualification is having left the British royal family in 2020. The show never resolved the authority gap. The numbers reflect that.
The follow-through problem — now fully documented
The original piece noted that you can flop once and recover, flop twice if you remain undeniably compelling, but that a pattern teaches audiences not to believe you the next time. Season 1 floped gently. Season 2 cratered. The show was cancelled after its two-season order was fulfilled. The As Ever brand it was designed to launch is now operating without its Netflix infrastructure. Netflix walked away from As Ever in March 2026. The follow-through problem documented in the prediction has now been confirmed by two seasons of viewership data, a cancellation, and a brand exit.
The trust problem — accelerated by the Australia tour
The original piece identified Meghan's largest obstacle as credibility rather than likeability — the gap between claiming relatability and living at a level of privilege most people cannot imagine. The Australia tour crystallised this in ways the show never had to face. A wellness retreat at $3,199 AUD per ticket ended with refund demands after Meghan departed early for a rugby match. The VIP gift bag contained a $4.50 packet of supermarket sweets. The gap between the brand's promise and its delivery, which the show documented week by week in its viewership trajectory, arrived in concentrated form in Sydney.
The Recipe, Updated With Results
Ingredients (Unchanged)
- One glossy announcement
- Generous use of the word "authentic"
- Muted neutrals and expensive ceramics
- A promise of emotional truth
- A carefully managed vulnerability arc
- A Netflix partnership (while it lasts)
Method (With Updated Results)
- Launch with serious intention ✓
- Position as meaningful and necessary ✓
- Over-style every frame ✓
- Under-deliver on originality ✓
- Season 1: crack the top 10 by one position ✓
- Season 2: fail to crack the top 10 anywhere ✓
- Get cancelled after the two-season order ✓
- Watch Suits outrank you from six years in the past ✓
The Gentle Hosting Tips, Revisited
The show tried to serve luxury women, wellness enthusiasts, royal voyeurs, and general lifestyle viewers simultaneously. None of them felt fully served. The viewership numbers reflect an audience that started curious and did not stay.
The August 11 statement about extending the Netflix partnership was released days before Season 2 launched to its worst performance. The statement described feeling inspired. The numbers described something else.
A show Meghan left in 2017 to become a royal still drew more Netflix views in 2025 than the show she launched in 2025. The audience knows where the value is. It is in the character she played before the crown, not in the persona she is performing after it.
A burnt cookie would have done more for the show than any of the polished episodes it produced. The most-viewed moment from the Sussex content ecosystem in 2025 was the four-year-old delivery room twerking video — 49.6 million views — which was raw, funny, and human. The show was none of those things.
The centrepiece nobody touched is now being put away.
We said this would feel like another centrepiece nobody actually touches. The $100 million Netflix relationship that launched the show is contracting toward its minimum viable form. The show itself has been cancelled. The lifestyle brand it was designed to launch is operating independently of the streaming machine that gave it its first-year audience. The Suits comparison — the show Meghan left six years ago still drawing more Netflix views than the show she built — is the sentence this era will be remembered by.
The internet plated it. The internet ate it alive. We take no pleasure in the accuracy. We do take note of it, for the same reason we keep taking note of everything: because the pattern matters, and the pattern is now documented across enough data points to constitute something sturdier than opinion.
The show is over. With love, Meghan. With receipts, us.
