Success and happiness — both personal and professional — are aligning with the efforts of Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, who believes this is just the beginning…
By Nichola Marie
A few months in and already 2025 shows distinct signs of being the year of Meghan Markle Sussex (this is how the Duchess of Sussex would rather be addressed, as she reminded her guest Mindy Kaling on her new Netflix series ‘With Love, Meghan’). For starters, she is officially back on Instagram as of January 1, returning to the social media platform after a seven-year hiatus with a video posted to her new handle, @meghan. Then she debuted her lifestyle brand As Ever, a curated collection of products “inspired by her long-lasting love of cooking, entertaining, and hostessing with ease.”
Her new Netflix series ‘With Love, Meghan’ has made it to the platform’s global Top 10, and a second season has already been announced. And now, she has revealed that she’s re-entering the podcast space, with the first episode of her new show debuting on April 8 – ‘Confessions of a Female Founder’. The stars finally seem to have aligned for the 1981-born American actress, vocal advocate for social issues, and Duchess of Sussex, who has been the subject of intense media scrutiny ever since she married into British royalty.
Navigating A New Life
It has been five years since Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, who wed in 2018, made the shocking decision to leave the UK after stepping down from official royal duties, to chart their own path. They had done so at the time, over concerns about media intrusion and other issues. While they retained their Sussex titles, they are no longer addressed as his or her royal highness (HRH), and Harry also gave up his military titles. The couple moved to California in June 2020, stating they wanted space to raise their first child Archie; their daughter Lilibet was born there in 2021. When Harry’s father Charles became King, the couple’s two children became Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet of Sussex.
According to the BBC, as working royals, they received 95% of their annual income from Harry’s father, then Prince of Wales, while the taxpayer-funded Sovereign Grant made up the other 5%. When they stepped down as senior royals, King Charles gave them “a substantial sum” to help establish their new life. The couple went on to set up the Archewell Charitable Foundation and entered into a number of commercial arrangements with private companies. In February 2024, they launched their Sussex.com website, which said they were “shaping the future through business and philanthropy.” In March 2024, Meghan launched American Riviera Orchard.
Their media company, Archewell Productions, makes programmes for the Netflix streaming service under a deal thought to be worth millions of dollars. In April 2024, Archewell revealed two new series were in production, one celebrating “the joys of cooking & gardening, entertaining, and friendship”, and another exploring the world of professional polo. While ‘Polo’ was broadcast in December 2024, ‘With Love, Meghan’ – which Netflix described as a lifestyle show blending “practical how tos and candid conversation” began on 4 March.
The couple had previously featured in the ‘Harry and Meghan’ documentary series, where they talked about life in the Royal Family, and ‘The Heart of Invictus’ series, which discussed the Duke’s emotional “unravelling” after military service in Afghanistan.
Archewell also made podcasts for Spotify under a contract thought to be worth $25 million. This included a series called Archetypes, which featured the Duchess in conversation with other well-known women. While the arrangement ended in June 2023, in February 2024, Meghan announced a new podcast deal with Lemonada Media, with the first programme expected later in 2025.
A Fresh Start
At the centre of the spotlight remains Meghan, her every move up for intense examination — and this time around, as she builds her brand, she seems to be charting the right course. Alluding to recent trademark issues surrounding the previous brand name American Riviera Orchard, she told ‘People’ magazine that the experience has been defined by growth. “I appreciate everyone who gave me the grace to make mistakes and figure it out and also to be forgiving with myself through that. It’s a learning curve,” she said, giving one the feeling that she was referring to more than just the contested brand name.
She is also opening up about the Sussex name, which was bestowed upon her and Harry by Queen Elizabeth on their wedding day, revealing that it holds a deeper significance post-motherhood than she could have earlier imagined. “It’s our shared name as a family… I love that that is something that Archie, Lili, H and I all have together. It means a lot to me,” she revealed in the ‘People’ interview, adding that the name is “is part of our love story.”
Honeymoon Again
She calls this period — a natural extension of her pre-royal life — “super joyful”, adding, “as a woman, a mom and a wife, to be able to find yourself again — in a way that was always present but that you maybe couldn’t put as much attention on as you now can when your kids are a little bit older — is a wonderful feeling.” Wisely, this time around there is no mention of the royal family at all, though Prince Harry does make a brief appearance in the final episode.
She reveals that she now sees “this spark in his (Harry’s) eye when he sees me doing the thing that I was doing when he first met me,” referring to ‘The Tig’, her blog on food, travel and wellness which she had launched in 2014, while filming the legal drama series ‘Suits’ in Toronto.
“It’s almost like a honeymoon period again,” she adds, “because it’s exactly how it was in the beginning when he’d watch me scribbling away, writing newsletters, fine-tuning edits and just really being in the details of it. I think he loves watching as much as I love doing that creative process. It’s just been fun. This is who I’ve always been.”
Beyond The Imagery
The show might paint a picture of domestic bliss but Meghan does not consider herself a “tradwife” (short for traditional wife) either. She shares, “I like being able to do a hybrid.” So while Chinese food delivery is a favourite at their home, she will “try to plate it beautifully.” She says, “The series is about doing what you can do and doing it with love,” encouraging others to strive for balance, not perfection, despite her show’s beautiful imagery.
While her friends, who have quietly supported her through the challenges, are thrilled with her success, she has also put the necessary effort into becoming part of the Montecito community. What with school drop-offs and playdates with the children, she and Harry have hosted different families at their home and been able to get to know the parents better, with friendships growing from school ties into deeper connections. In turn, the community has become protective of the Sussexes, she believes, and desires for them to have the same normalcy as the rest of them do, despite their unique situation.
A Loving Legacy
The show also offers her the opportunity to let the world see her identification of food as one of her love languages, to put kid-friendly recipes to the test, and to have her children watch her at work and understand what she is working to create and share. “Being able to have my own little girl, as I’ve spent so much of my life championing the rights of girls and women, and to be able to see this as a multigenerational story — Archie is of course included in that, my husband is of course included in that — but I love the heritage feeling of it and knowing this is something that I can create in front of my daughter and teach her what it’s like to be a working mom,” she says. “This is something that hopefully can be part of her legacy too.”
Life for Meghan in Montecito has fallen into a relaxed pattern. On non-working days, she and Harry enjoy “day dates,” where they share a quiet lunch together. Evenings are for “nightcap recaps” as they unwind with a drink as they chat about their day, make lunch boxes, and also catch up on TV together.
In a chat with Godmothers bookstore, she named one of her “pet joys”: Saturday morning cartoons in bed. “In the UK, they call it a ‘duvet day’ and I’ve always found that sweet. Our little family, snuggled up for an easy family morning, followed by pancakes and bacon. The dream.”
She now looks ahead to what’s in store, adding, “This is just the beginning. Life is full of surprises.”
Did you know…?
• Meghan was born in Los Angeles to Doria Ragland, an African American former television studio intern who later became a social worker and yoga instructor, and her husband, Thomas Markle, a lighting director who was white. The couple divorced when Meghan was a young child, but both remained active in her life.
• After graduating from Immaculate Heart High School, an all-girls Roman Catholic school, in 1999, she studied theatre and international studies at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois (B.A., 2003).
• Embarking on her acting career in Los Angeles, she landed guest roles and also freelanced as a calligrapher, before being cast as paralegal Rachel Zane in the popular USA Network legal drama series ‘Suits’ (2011–19). She also played leading roles in films such as ‘Random Encounters’ (2013) and ‘Anti-Social’ (2015).
