Is Meghan Markle jockeying to be the next Martha Stewart?
The former Suits actress debuted the name of what many believe will be her new lifestyle brand, American Riviera Orchard, on social media earlier this month at the height of the speculation over her sister-in-law Kate Middleton’s health.
On Monday’s show, Megyn was joined by Dan Wootton, host of Dan Wootton Outspoken, to discuss Markle’s latest project and why it appears to be “Goop on acid.”
American Riviera Orchard
As she attempts to get her podcast back up and running on a new platform after Spotify cut ties with her and Prince Harry, Markle also appears to be eyeing another rebrand.
A new website and Instagram page for American Riviera Orchard went live earlier this month with little more than a logo. The loopy golden calligraphy and crest also includes the name of the Southern California neighborhood that the Markle and Harry have called home since infamously leaving Great Britain in 2020, Montecito.
The bio on Instagram simply reads, “By Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex. Established 2024,” but the brand’s inaugural Instagram Story was a heavily filtered promo that showed Markle picking flowers, cooking in a rustic kitchen, and standing in a ballgown to the tune “I Wish You Love” by Nancy Wilson.
Internet sleuths quickly discovered that trademark applications for the brand show Markle is hoping to sell tableware, drinkware, kitchen linens, cookbooks, and panty items like jellies, jams, and spreads.
While the website is nothing more than a landing page at the moment, visitors are encouraged to “join the waitlist” as a way to stay in the know about “products, availability, and updates.”
‘Goop on Acid’
All of this calls to mind Markle’s now-shuttered lifestyle blog, The Tig, which she ran from 2014 until her engagement to Prince Harry in 2017. “After all that – after getting the role in Suits, landing Prince Harry, doing the Netflix thing – she’s back to The Tig,” Megyn said. “She’s back to the dumb lifestyle website she started off with.”
The landscape has changed quite a bit since then with the rise of Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop and even influencers like Hannah Neeleman (a.k.a. Ballerina Farm). “It’s like she’s trying to be that ballerina farm girl who… wants me to believe that she’s a self-made woman when she’s got all this money from the husband’s parents,” Megyn said. “It’s a lie, and I think we have another big white lie going on in Montecito from the Duchess of Duplicity.”
Wootton agreed. “This is like Goop on acid – and not in a good way,” he noted. “I mean, who wants to buy garlic oil from Meghan Markle? I actually think it’s going to be a real failure because I do not understand what market she’s pitching to.”
The Timing
The timing of the American Riviera Orchard launch was also not lost on anyone. The Instagram account and website debuted just 45 minutes before Prince William delivered remarks at the annual Diana Legacy Awards in London, in addition to being smack in the middle of the controversy surrounding the Princess of Wales’ photoshopped photo.
As Wootton explained, that ruffled feathers in and around the palace. “I’m picking up from the Royal Family – my sources there – lots of unhappiness that she used the vacuum provided by Catherine and all of the headlines around her health in order to purposely launch a new venture,” he shared. “They thought it was quite icky.”
Even so, it did not come as much of a surprise. “But look, this is what they do,” he concluded. “They want to make lots of money, but they failed to make money from Spotify… They failed to have any hits on Netflix apart from their one reality series where they decided to slag off their own family members, so now she’s doing a Goop and I think it’s not going to go well.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Wootton by tuning in to episode 749 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.