Ted Sarandos Unfollowed Meghan Markle on Instagram

Mar 20

March 20, 2026 | Royals

There is something quietly devastating about an unfollow. No confrontation. No press release. No statement through a spokesperson using the phrase "absolutely inaccurate." Just a quiet little tap on a screen, and suddenly you're no longer in someone's feed. It's the digital equivalent of being removed from the guest list — except the whole internet eventually finds out.

This week, that tap came from Ted Sarandos — Netflix co-CEO, Montecito neighbour, and a man who, not so long ago, was calling Meghan Markle his rock star.

He unfollowed her. Both accounts. Her personal Instagram and As Ever, the lifestyle brand formerly known as American Riviera Orchard. Gone. Bela Bajaria, Netflix's chief content officer, quietly did the same. And while a parade of spokespeople rushed in to call everything "absolutely inaccurate" and "blatantly false," the Instagram algorithm doesn't lie, honey. Those follows are not there.

Let's talk about what this actually means — because this story is bigger, messier, and far more revealing than a simple social media button suggests.

The "Rock Star" Who Lost the Room

To understand the weight of this unfollow, you have to go back to the beginning. When Netflix signed Harry and Meghan to their now-infamous deal in September 2020 — reportedly worth anywhere between $30 and $100 million — the mood inside the streamer was electric. Sarandos was a true believer. The couple had the most talked-about exit story in modern history and a built-in global audience of hundreds of millions. What could go wrong?

The answer, it turns out, was a lot.

The Harry & Meghan documentary was a genuine cultural moment — the highest-debuting documentary in Netflix history. But that was 2022. And as we've covered extensively in our breakdown of the Variety exposé, what followed was a string of projects that critically and commercially failed to replicate that initial heat. Polo landed with a thud. With Love, Meghan — the lifestyle show that was supposed to launch her into the domestic-goddess stratosphere — performed so poorly that insiders described the building mood as simply: "We're done."

Three sources told Variety that Sarandos was personally "fed up" with the pair. Bajaria was said to have "grown weary" of the Sussex pact. And yet — officially — everyone was still friends. Everyone was still collaborating. The relationship was fine, actually, great even, there are films in development, don't look at our Instagram follows.

The unfollow made it impossible to look away.

The Geometry of a Netflix Exit

Here is something worth paying attention to: Sarandos still follows Amy Adams on Instagram. He still follows Beyoncé. He still follows Wanda Sykes. He has not, it seems, grown weary of them. Just the Sussexes. Just the couple he neighboured in Montecito, the woman he called a rock star, the brand he co-signed at launch.

His wife, Nicole Avant, still follows Meghan personally — a Netflix source was quick to clarify that "Nicole and Meghan are still friends." As if the wife's follow were the fig leaf that makes the husband's unfollow acceptable. As if we weren't all going to notice.

This is the geometry of a very specific kind of Hollywood exit. Not a slammed door. A quietly closed one. Followed by a spokesperson calling the slam "absolutely inaccurate."

We called this pivot a long time ago. Netflix didn't just walk away from the Meghan Markle cinematic universe — it tiptoed, leaving the furniture behind. First came the downgrade from an overall deal to a first-look deal in August 2025. Then came the quiet divestment from As Ever, leaving reportedly $10 million worth of unsold jam, candles, flower sprinkles, and bookmarks with no streaming home. Then came Variety's bombshell exposé — six well-placed sources, anonymous and encyclopedic. And now, the unfollow.

Each step has been deniable. Collectively, they form a story.

The Lawyer Allegation That Everyone Denied Very Loudly

The detail that broke through the noise — the one that had everyone talking — was the claim from two Variety sources that Sarandos had recently said he would not sit for a call with Meghan unless a lawyer was present.

That's a remarkable thing to say about someone you allegedly socialise with regularly. The sources themselves weren't sure if he was joking.

Netflix called it "absolutely inaccurate." Meghan's attorney, Michael J. Kump, went further — "blatantly false" — and added that Meghan texts Sarandos regularly and has been to his home, lawyers decidedly not present.

Note what neither side denied: that the relationship has become complicated enough that this allegation felt plausible to six people willing to say it on background to Variety. When a denial has to work that hard, the original allegation has done some damage.

What "We Still Have Things in Development" Actually Means

Bajaria stood up at Netflix's Next on Netflix presentation this week and did what Netflix needed her to do. "Don't believe whatever you read," she said. "We still have a relationship with them, we have movies in development with them, we have an amazing doc with them."

And then the presentation moved on to Ben Affleck's upcoming film Animals and the second season of Beef.

Not a single Sussex project was spotlighted. Not one.

"Deals come and go all the time," Bajaria added, with the energy of someone explaining why there's no dessert at a dinner party they clearly did not want to throw.

We wrote an open letter to Meghan earlier this year — you can read it here — and what we said then still holds: the machinery of Hollywood is not sentimental. Relationships aren't ended in public. They're ended in small, deniable increments. A downgraded deal. An unspotlighted project. A quiet unfollow.

The Larger Question Nobody Is Asking

Here is what this week's Instagram spiral is actually pointing toward: what comes next?

Because if Netflix is genuinely "done" — if the building mood is what sources say it is — then Harry and Meghan are navigating Hollywood without their most powerful benefactor, at a moment when, as Variety reported, A-list talent and directors have grown "hesitant" to attach themselves to Sussex projects.

The Harry & Meghan documentary worked because it was a singular story with a singular cultural gravity. But that was four years ago. As we examined in our piece on six years out from the royal exit, the question was never whether Meghan could launch — it was whether she could sustain. And right now, sustain is exactly what the numbers aren't doing.

As Ever still has acres of unsold stock. The Netflix deal is effectively winding down. And the woman who was once described as a rock star by the most powerful man in streaming is learning what it feels like to be unfollowed.

Sara Alba