Welcome back to the Deep Dive. We have a stack
of sources today that is thick enough to stop
a door and honestly the contents are volatile
enough to blow the door right off its hinges.
It's a good way to put it. We are tackling a
subject that everyone, and I mean absolutely
everyone, has an opinion on. But the thing is,
usually those opinions are based on headlines,
tweets, or just pure vibes. Right. Not on the
documentation. Exactly. Today, we are looking
at the actual documentation. We are talking about
Meghan, Duchess of Sussex. And, you know, it
is the ultimate modern case study. I mean, if
you really look at the source material we have
in front of us, the biographies, the financial
filings, the court transcripts, it really stops
being a story about a princess. It starts being
a story about brand management, about cultural
collision, and really about survival. Survival.
That's a strong word, but I think it's accurate.
And before we dive in, we really need to set
the scene because the context here is everything.
It's critical. Today is January 24th, 2026. And
the reason we are pulling this particular file
right now is because the narrative has just,
well, it's shifted on its axis again. It has
massively. If you thought the story ended with
Oprah or the Netflix documentary or even the
book spare, you were just, you were wrong. The
story keeps evolving. It does. And the sources
we're looking at, they bring us right up to this
very month, and what they paint is a picture
of a very, very different strategic phase for
the Sussexes. Okay, so let's look at the recent
breaking news section of our notes first, because
this, I think, is the hook. It's the perfect
entry point. As of late 2025, Meghan Markle has
officially returned to acting. She was cast in
a project called Close Personal Friends. This
is her first scripted role in eight years. Eight
years, which is a lifetime in Hollywood. And
it is a massive development. I mean, for nearly
a decade, the whole narrative was that she had
sort of ascended beyond Hollywood. She was a
royal. Then she was a philanthropist, a producer,
a global advocate. So for her to go back to being
a working actress, that signals something huge.
What do you think it signals? It signals that
the royal chapter, at least in its previous form,
is truly closed. And the Hollywood chapter is
being fully and very deliberately reopened. And
there's another detail from this month, January
2026, that I think is maybe even more telling.
Okay. The Sussexes have rehired Sunshine Sacks.
Which is just... It's fascinating. For those
who don't follow the inside baseball of PR, Sunshine
Sacks is the crisis firm Meghan used before the
royal wedding. Right. Before everything exploded.
They're the heavy hitters. They are who you call
when you want to be a celebrity superstar, a
major player in Hollywood. They're not who you
call when you want to be a, you know, a discreet
member of the British aristocracy. So bringing
them back now feels like a full circle moment.
A very intentional one. It's like they're saying,
OK, that detour. is interesting, but we're back
on the original flight path. It feels like they're
getting the old band back together. It's a rebrand
that is actually a return to basics. That's a
perfect way to phrase it. So our mission today
is to move past the polarization. We are not
here to pick a side. We are here to really understand
the arc of this life, how a mixed race girl from
L .A. became a British royal and then pivoted
to build this modern media and lifestyle empire.
And to really understand that arc, you cannot
start at Windsor Castle. You can't even start
in Toronto on the set of Suits. You have to start
in Canoga Park, Los Angeles. Let's go there.
Section one, the origin story, because the sources
here. They really dismantle this idea that she
was just some, you know, generic actress who
got lucky. There is a lot of grit in these early
years. There is a tremendous amount. She was
born Rachel Megan Markle in 1981. And her family
dynamic was, well, it was complex from day one.
Her parents, Doria Ragland and Thomas Markle
Sr., they divorced when she was six. Right. And
you have these two very different influences.
You have Doria, a yoga instructor and makeup
artist who is African -American. And then you
have Thomas, a lighting director for television
who is. And that lighting director detail, it's
actually really key, isn't it? It's not like
he was a movie star. No, not at all. She didn't
grow up in front of the camera. She grew up behind
the scenes. Our source biography mentions her
dad worked on shows like General Hospital and
married with children. So she was on set. But
not in the way people imagine. Exactly. She was
a below -the -line kid. She spent her afternoons
on set, but not in the Starz trailer with a tutor.
She was probably in the lighting booth or the
craft services tent. So she saw the mechanics
of the industry. The mechanics, the long hours,
the unglamorous reality of making TV. Yeah. It
really demystifies fame when you see... You know,
Ed O 'Neill eating a sandwich between takes.
It's a job. That feels important for everything
that comes later. But then you have the identity
piece, which is layered on top of all that. The
biography quotes her directly. My dad is Caucasian
and my mom is African -American. I'm half black
and half white. And while that sounds like a
very simple factual statement today, in the context
of the 1990s and 2000s in Los Angeles, especially
in the entertainment industry, it was a source
of constant friction. The sources describe her
struggle as being ethnically ambiguous. That
was the industry term. Right. I remember reading
that she talked about going out for auditions
and being told she wasn't black enough for the
black roles. But then she wasn't white enough
for the white roles. She was stuck in this bizarre.
casting limbo, the best friend role, the quirky
neighbor. That must have been incredibly frustrating.
And it forces a certain kind of hustle. It means
you can't just rely on your type. You have to
outwork everyone. And that's what I really see
in this early section of the biography, the hustle.
She wasn't just sitting around waiting to be
discovered. She was grinding. The list of odd
jobs is actually pretty impressive when you lay
it all out. It is. She was a freelance calligrapher,
apparently a very good one. She did the invitations
for celebrity weddings. like Robin Thicke's.
No way. Yep. She taught bookbinding. She worked
in a yogurt shop. And, of course, the one that
everyone remembers. She's a briefcase girl on
Deal or No Deal. Case number 24. Case number
24. And I think it's easy for people to look
down on that gig, to see it as just being a model.
People are very dismissive of it. But imagine
the sheer discipline required to stand there
in five -inch heels, smiling at a piece of metal
luggage for hours on end. knowing that you were
essentially a prop. All while holding a university
degree from Northwestern. That's the other thing
people forget. She wasn't uneducated. This wasn't
her only option. She double majored in theater
and international studies at a top university.
I read she even interned at the U .S. Embassy
in Buenos Aires. She did. She apparently spoke
fluent Spanish, had a security clearance. For
a while, she seriously considered a career in
politics or diplomacy. So standing on that stage
holding briefcase number 24. That must have felt
like a massive disconnect from her perceived
potential. A huge disconnect. But it paid the
bills while she went on auditions. It was means
to an end. It was part of the grind. But she
had that activist streak very early on. The dish
soap story. We have to unpack this because the
sources confirm it's 100 % true, not just some
PR myth they cooked up later. It is absolutely
true. And it's foundational to understanding
her. So she's 11 years old. She sees a commercial
for a Procter & Gamble dish soap. And the tagline
was something like women all over America are
fighting greasy pots and pans. Exactly. And at
11 years old, you know, most kids are worried
about recess or homework. She's worried about
gender syntax and advertising. She took offense
to it. The implication that only women do dishes.
So she didn't just complain to her mom about
it. She took. action. What did she do? She wrote
letters, a whole letter writing campaign. She
wrote to the company, Procter & Gamble. She wrote
to news anchors, including Linda Ellerbee. She
wrote to the famous lawyer, Gloria Allred. She
wrote to Gloria Allred at age 11. At age 11.
And you know what? It worked. It actually worked.
It did. Procter & Gamble changed the word in
the commercial from women to people, people all
over America. That is a foundational moment.
It has to be. Think about the lesson that teaches
an 11 -year -old girl. It teaches you that if
you don't like the script, you can challenge
it. It teaches you that if you apply pressure
to the right leverage points, you can actually
change the narrative. You can force a multi -billion
dollar corporation to rewrite their ad. That's
a lesson she seems to have carried with her for
the rest of her life. For better or for worse,
yes. It's a core part of her operating system.
So she grinds through the odd jobs, she fights
the casting directors, and then finally in 2011
she lands Suits. The breakthrough. She's cast
as Rachel Zane, and this changes her entire financial
reality overnight. What were the numbers on that?
The sources say she was making about $50 ,000
per episode. That's the figure, which over an
18 -episode season is roughly $450 ,000 a year.
Which for a working actor in Toronto, where the
show filmed, is a fortune. It's life -changing
money. She was independently wealthy. The biography
talks about how she was driving a nice car. She
was buying her own home. She was traveling internationally
on her own dime. She had made it. And crucially,
she didn't just sit back and enjoy the acting
paycheck. She started The Tig. This is the part
that I think is most relevant to what she's doing
now in 2026. Oh, absolutely. The Tig was her
lifestyle blog. which she launched in 2014. And
you have to understand, this wasn't just, you
know, a diary of her thoughts. This was business.
It was a brand. She was curating content on food,
travel, fashion, beauty. She was doing interviews.
She was establishing herself as a tastemaker.
Like a proto -goop. Exactly, a proto -goop. And
it had a massive, very engaged following. This
proved her ability to build an audience and curate
a specific kind of taste long before her current
ventures. It was the blueprint. So let's just
put it. a pin in that for a second. When she
meets Prince Harry in mid -2016, she is not Cinderella.
She is not some naive girl being plucked from
obscurity. Not even close. She is a 35 -year
-old self -made millionaire with a successful
acting career, her own media platform with a
huge following, and a very clear, established
public voice. And that right there is exactly
why the collision with the royal family was so
violent, so explosive. Because it was two completely
different worlds colliding. You have a woman
who is used to controlling her own image, negotiating
her own contract, speaking her mind, building
her own brand, and she marries into an institution
that relies on hierarchy, silence, and total
submission to the firm. It was never going to
be a smooth transition. Okay, that's the perfect
pivot. Let's move to section two, the royal collision.
Because the timeline here is just breathless.
It happens so fast. It's incredibly compressed.
They meet in mid -2016, a blind date set up by
a mutual friend. The sources say it was via an
Instagram connection, which is so modern. Very
modern. And by November of that same year, just
a few months in, Harry is already issuing this
unprecedented statement defending her. That statement
in November 2016, that was the first real red
flag that this wasn't going to be a normal royal
romance. Oh, absolutely. A senior royal had never
done anything like it. He publicly condemned
what he called the wave of abuse and harassment
she was facing from the press and the public.
And he didn't mince words. He explicitly called
out the racial undertones of the commentary and
the outright sexism and racism of social media
trolls. He was drawing a line in the sand from
day one. He was basically shouting to the world,
I am not going to let you do to her what you
did to my mother. Which is noble. But it also
raises stakes immediately. It put a target on
their backs. This wasn't just a marriage anymore.
It was a crusade against the media culture that
he felt had destroyed his childhood. And yet,
despite all that early turmoil, the wedding in
May 2018, I mean, it looked perfect. It felt
like a fairy tale. It was a global spectacle.
St. George's Chapel, the gospel choir singing
Stand By Me. It genuinely felt for a moment like
a real modernization of the monarchy. It did.
It felt like a hinge point in history. But even
within that perfection, the sources show there
were already cracks forming. Do you remember
the private vows controversy? Oh, right. This
came out in the Oprah interview later. Meghan
said that she and Harry had actually gotten married
three days before the public wedding, just the
two of them in their backyard with the Archbishop
of Canterbury. Right. She said, we called the
Archbishop and we just said, look, this thing,
this spectacle is for the world, but we want
our union between us. Which sounds very romantic
and personal. It does. But then the Archbishop
of Canterbury had to come out and issue a clarification.
He confirmed that legally the public wedding
was the real binding one. The backyard ceremony
was just a private exchange of vows. And that
detail, it's so revealing of Meghan's mindset,
isn't it? It's everything. To her, the real marriage
was the private, authentic moment between two
people. The public ceremony, the one the British
taxpayers helped pay for, the one that made her
a duchess, that was just a show. And that shows
such a fundamental disconnect. Because to the
royal family, the public show is the job. The
ceremony is the point. Precisely. To Meghan,
the public aspect was an intrusion on her private
reality. To the monarchy, the public aspect is
the reality. That's the deal. And that friction,
that clash of worldviews, started to erode the
relationships inside the palace almost immediately.
We all remember the Fab Four era. The pictures
of William, Kate, Harry and Meghan. The hope.
There was so much hope. We thought there were
going to be this unstoppable superhero team of
modern royals. And it lasted for about. What,
15 minutes? It felt like it. It dissolved almost
immediately into stories of tension and rifts.
And this is where we have to talk about the Dutchess
difficult narrative versus the smear campaign
theory. Because the source material is very,
very split on that. It is one of the most contentious
parts of this whole story. And there's evidence
on both sides. OK, so let's unpack this carefully.
On one side, you have the bullying allegations.
Right. In 2018, their own communications secretary,
a man named Jason Knopf, sent a formal email
to his superior. In it, he expressed serious
concern that Meghan was bullying two personal
assistants out of the household. And his wording
was strong. He said their treatment was totally
unacceptable and that he was concerned the Duchess
seems intent on always having someone in her
sights. It was a bombshell email. The palace
eventually launched an internal inquiry. But,
and this is classic royal management style, they
buried the results in 2022. Why? What was the
official reason? They said it was to protect
the privacy of those involved, which sounds reasonable.
But the effect was that it left this permanent
cloud of suspicion. No one was ever formally
cleared or condemned. It just hangs there. Okay,
so that's one side. But then you have to look
at the counter evidence. You do. And it's compelling
in its own way. Even as recently as January 2025,
a Vanity Fair deep dive on her management style
found that opinion among former staff is incredibly
polarized. It's not a consensus. Not at all.
You have some staff on the record or anonymously
saying she is lovely, genuine. She remembers
your birthday, your dog's name, just a wonderful
boss. And then in the same article, you have
others describing her as cold withholding and
that they literally needed therapy after working
for her. So how do you square that? How can both
be true? I think it points to a massive cultural
clash in management styles. Think about it. In
Hollywood, if you are the star of the show and
the car isn't there at 5 a .m. sharp, you are
expected to send a fiery email. That's seen as
being a professional, as demanding excellence.
Right. You're the talent. Your time is money.
But in the culture of Kensington Palace, if you
send a demanding email at 5 a .m., that is seen
as abrasive, as rude, as bullying. It's a completely
different set of norms. So she was trying to
run a Silicon Valley startup inside a 1 ,000
-year -old museum. That is a perfect analogy.
And the museum fought back. The institution has
its own immune system, and it saw her as a foreign
body. And all this is happening while the external
pressure is mounting. The press is relentless.
Relentless. And she was pregnant during this
period. They were on these high -profile royal
tours of Australia and southern Africa, doing
something like 179 official engagements in two
years. It's an insane schedule. And on top of
it all, she was struggling profoundly with her
mental health. Which she later revealed in the
Oprah interview. She spoke about having active
suicidal thoughts while pregnant with Archie.
She said she went to the institution for help
and was told it wouldn't be good for their image
if she sought treatment. Which, if true, is a
devastating indictment of the system. It is.
So you have the internal clashes, the external
media war, the mental health crisis. It all leads
to the breaking point. January 2020. The Instagram
post. Megxit. the decision to step back as senior
working royals. But we need to look at the terms
of the exit agreement because the deal they struck
with the queen explains everything that happened
afterwards. He wasn't just a friendly resignation.
Far from it. This wasn't them just saying we
quit and walking away. There were conditions.
They were effectively cut off. So what were the
key terms? Okay, first, they lost the right to
use their HRH titles, his or her royal highness,
in any public or commercial capacity. They still
hold the titles legally. but they can't use them.
A huge symbolic demotion. Huge. Second, they
lost their public funding, the sovereign grant.
That was their salary, essentially. Gone. And
perhaps most painfully, financially. They had
to repay the full cost of the renovations on
Frogmore Cottage, their UK home. The bill was
2 .4 million pounds. That is a massive check
to write when you have just quit your job and
lost your income. It's a staggering amount of
money. And it completely necessitated the next
pivot. It forced their hand. They went from a
model of public service to one of commercial
independence. Because they had to. They had to
make money. They had to pay for their own security,
which the sources estimate costs millions of
dollars a year. So the big money content deals
with Netflix and Spotify. They weren't just vanity
projects. They were, at their core, survival
mechanisms. And once they were out of the institution
and financially independent, the gloves really
came off. Completely. Which brings us into Section
3, the media war. Because they didn't just take
the bad press lying down anymore. They went on
the offensive. They went to court. This section
of the source material reads like a legal textbook.
It's just a constant battlefield. It is. And
the most significant case by far was Megan suing
Associated Newspapers, that's the publisher of
the Mail on Sunday and Mail Online, for publishing
a private handwritten letter she sent to her
father. And she won that case, right? She did.
After a long fight, she won on the grounds of
invasion of privacy and copyright infringement.
But the details of the damages award. This is
the part that really sticks with me. What were
they? She was awarded a confidential sum for
the copyright part, which likely covered her
legal fees. But for the actual invasion of privacy,
she was awarded one pound. One single pound?
One pound. It was entirely symbolic. The judge
was basically acknowledging the privacy breach,
but the minimal award was, well, it was a bit
of a zinger. It was her saying, this wasn't about
the money. This was about the principle. You
broke the law. A Pyrrhic victory. In some ways,
yes, but it set a precedent. But the lawsuits
weren't just coming from her side. They were
coming at her, too. Her half -sister, Samantha
Markle, has sued her for defamation multiple
times in the U .S. What's the basis of those
suits? Samantha claims that Meghan's rags -to
-riches narrative The story she told on Oprah
and in the biography, finding freedom about growing
up as an only child with little money, defamed
her father and half -siblings by painting them
in a negative light. But those cases haven't
gone anywhere. They keep getting dismissed. The
most recent one was thrown out in March of 2024.
The judge's ruling was fascinating. He basically
ruled that Megan's descriptions of her own childhood
are opinions and subjective impressions. And
you can't be sued for having an opinion about
your own life. So she's fighting these battles
in court. But it feels like the real war was
happening online. Oh, without a doubt. And this
is where it gets really dark. The bot sentinel
report from 2021. This actually terrified me
when I read through the finding. It's chilling.
It should be. Bot Sentinel is a firm that analyzes
social media activity. They did a deep dive on
the Twitter activity around Harry and Meghan.
What they found was that just 83 accounts. 83.
Not 83 ,000. Just 83. Just... 83 accounts were
responsible for 70 % of the original negative
and hateful content directed at them. That is
insane. That's not a groundswell of public opinion.
That is a coordinated campaign. It's an orchestrated,
targeted campaign. It wasn't that millions of
people spontaneously hated her. It was that a
tiny handful of people were working very, very
hard to make it look like millions of people
hated her. It's an algorithm of hate. That's
exactly what it is. But it wasn't just anonymous
bots and trolls in the shadows. have to talk
about the mainstream media vitriol and specifically
the Jeremy Clarkson column in the Sun newspaper
in 2022. Oh, God. I remember this. It was shocking.
It was beyond shocking. He wrote, and I'm quoting
from the source here, that he hated her on a
cellular level. And then he wrote that he dreamed
of the day she is made to parade naked through
the streets of every town in Britain while the
crowds chant shame and throw lumps of excrement
at her. It's just, it's violent, misogynistic
imagery. It's incitement. It was. And the public
backlash was immense. It received over 25 ,000
complaints to the independent press regulator,
IBSO. A record number. And the regulator did
rule that the column was sexist. They did. But
the fact that it was written by a major columnist
and published in one of the UK's biggest newspapers,
it just shows the level of toxicity she was dealing
with. This wasn't just bad press or critical
commentary. It was visceral, personal hatred.
So you've got this incredibly hostile environment,
particularly in the UK. You have the immense
financial pressure back in the US. This all leads
them. post -2020 to start building the archwell
empire this is section four the commercial era
begins and looking at the business record here
from the sources it seems well it's a bit mixed
isn't it it's volatile it's a record of big swings
some hits some misses let's start with the content
deals they signed a massive reported hundred
million dollar deal with netflix and the first
big project out of that was the docuseries harry
and megan in late 2022 which by the numbers,
was a huge success. It broke viewership records
for a Netflix documentary. It dominated the cultural
conversation for weeks. Love it or hate it, everyone
was watching it. Exactly. But then there are
follow -up projects like Heart of Invictus and
Live to Lead. They didn't really make as much
noise. They kind of came and went. So there were
questions about the longevity of that partnership.
There were. But the relationship held. In August
of 2025, our sources confirmed that Archwell
renewed their partnership with Netflix. They
signed a new multi -year first look deal. That
is a huge vote of confidence from Netflix. It
is. It means Netflix is betting that Meghan and
Harry still have stories to tell that people
want to watch. Spotify, however, that was a very
different story. That was a failure. Let's just
be honest about it. The sources are pretty clear
on this. What happened there? They signed a reported
$20 million deal in 2020. And in the nearly three
years of that deal, Megan produced one single
podcast, Archetypes. And Archetypes was actually
pretty good. It was. It won awards. She interviewed
Serena Williams, Mariah Carey, major stars. The
content itself was high quality, but the output
was just too slow. 12 episodes in three years.
It wasn't enough to justify the price tag. And
the deal ended in June 2023. It mutually ended,
was the official line. But then a senior Spotify
executive, Bill Simmons, went on his own podcast
and just... He called them effing gristers. He
did, which was a absolutely brutal PR blow. It
fed directly into the narrative that they were
all talk and no work, that they take the money
but don't deliver the product. But again, look
at the resilience because that wasn't the end
of her audio career. No. By early 2025, she is
back in the audio game. She launched a new independent
podcast with a different network, Lemonada Media.
And the title of this new podcast is so telling.
It's called Confessions of a Female Founder.
The title signals the shift perfectly. It's not
about archetypes of women anymore. It's about
founders. It's about business. It's about entrepreneurship.
Which leads us directly to the big lifestyle
pivot. This has really been the major story of
2024 through to where we are now in 2026. The
launch of the As Ever brand. Which was originally
teased as American Riviera Orchard. Which, let's
be honest, sounded a bit like a high -end retirement
home. Or a very expensive salad dressing. The
name didn't quite land. No, it didn't. So they
rebranded it to As Ever. and launched officially
in April 2025. And this is pure focus commercial
strategy. She is selling home goods, jams, oils,
cutlery. She is positioning herself as the new
American Martha Stewart. But for a younger, more
ethically minded generation. Precisely. And she
is backing it up with a portfolio of personal
investments that align with that brand. The list
is fascinating. What's in the portfolio? The
sources list Clever Blends, which is an instant
oat milk latte company. There's Sesta Collective,
which sells ethically made. handbags. And most
recently, in November 2024, highbrow hippie,
a hair care brand. So it's a whole curated ecosystem
of ethical luxury. She's building a world where
she is the ultimate arbiter of taste. Yes. And
she's not afraid to monetize that directly. The
sources mentioned she briefly ran a curated shopping
site called Shop Me in 2025, where she would
earn affiliate commissions on products she recommended.
That is pure influencer economics. It's a modern
media playbook. She's not just a brand ambassador.
She is the brand. So you have the jam, you have
the podcast, you have the Netflix deal, you have
the investments. It really looks like she is
settling into this lifestyle mogul role. But
then the curveball. The big one. Section 5. Yeah.
The return to Hollywood. This is the news that
changes the whole equation. Late 2025. After
all this, she gets cast in a new movie, Close
Personal Friends. So the big question is, why
now? After eight years away, why go back to acting?
I think. I think it's an admission that the royal
brand is ultimately a depreciating asset. What
do you mean by that? You can only sell your trauma
for so long. You can only be the duchess who
left for so long. Eventually, that story gets
old. You have to pivot from telling the story
of your life to just... Living your life. You
have to do something. And acting is the thing
she knows how to do. It's her original skill.
It's a return to competence. It's a way to be
judged on her craft, not on her personal drama.
And she is reassembling the machinery to support
that comeback. She signed with the major talent
agency WOME back in 2023. A huge move. Ari Emanuel's
agency. They represent the biggest stars in the
world. And now, as we said at the top, rehiring
Sunshine Sachs in 2026. That tells me everything.
It tells me she wants to be a star again. Not
a figurehead, not a diplomat, not a... lifestyle
guru, a capital S star. Sunshine Sachs knows
how to get you on the cover of magazines for
your work, not for your latest scandal. But it's
interesting because she hasn't completely abandoned
the global advocacy stage. The two still seem
to be running in parallel. We have to mention
the Nigeria trip in May 2024. That was such a
fascinating counter -narrative. At the same time
the UK press was relentlessly omnecking her,
she and Harry went on a quasi -royal tour of
Nigeria. And this was linked to her discovering
her own heritage. Yes, she had revealed she is
43 % Nigerian based on a genealogy test. And
the reception there was just rapturous. It was
the complete opposite of her reception in London.
It was. She was treated like visiting royalty.
She received chieftaincy titles. She was named
Ada Mozzie, which means daughter of the Mozzie.
It was a huge success. And what that trip really
highlighted. is that while she might be incredibly
polarizing in the West, in parts of the global
South and the Commonwealth, she's often seen
as a very powerful symbol of representation.
A completely different lens. And she's still
doing the high -level advocacy work. In late
2025, she and Harry signed a public letter with
other tech leaders calling for a ban on artificial
superintelligence. And they won a humanitarian
award for their mental health work around the
same time. Right. So they are trying to straddle
these two worlds. high -minded, Davos -level,
global humanitarian work, and the much more commercial
hustle of selling jam and acting in movies. Which
is a very difficult tightrope to walk. Why? So
we have reached the conclusion, section six,
the synthesis. When you take all these pieces
and lay them out, when you look at this entire
arc, from the activist kid to the briefcase girl
to the duchess to the royal outcast to the lifestyle
mogul slash actress, what is the through line?
What connects it all? I think the through line
is a pattern of creation and destruction, or
maybe more charitably, creation and reinvention.
Explain that. It's a pattern of constant, restless
reinvention. She builds a successful blog, The
Tig. She shuts it down. She joins the royal family,
a thousand -year -old brand. She leaves it. She
starts a podcast deal with Spotify. It ends.
She starts another one. She launches a brand.
She renames it. So is that instability? Or is
that adaptability? That is the multi -million
dollar question, isn't it? In Silicon Valley,
they would call it pivoting. It's seen as a strength.
In an ancient institution like the royal family,
they would call it instability or not being a
stair. She operates with a startup mindset. She
absolutely does. If the product isn't working
or the market conditions change, you change the
team, you change the name, you relaunch. You
don't just keep doing the same thing because
you've always done it. And whatever you think
of her, the Megan effect is still very real.
Oh, undeniably. Whether people love her or hate
her, they are paying attention. She crashes a
website just by wearing a dress. She sparks a
record -breaking number of off -com complaints
with an interview. She moves the needle. It's
a fascinating duality. The sources note she is
statistically one of the most disliked celebrities
in the U .S., according to a 2025 ranker poll.
And yet, in that same period, she signed a new
Netflix deal and got cast in a major movie. Hate
clicks are still clicks. Outrage is still engagement.
The algorithm doesn't care why you're watching.
Right. So let's end with a provocative thought
for you, the listener. With this return to acting
in close personal friends and the launch of the
as -ever lifestyle brand, are we finally seeing
the version of Meghan she was always meant to
be? The final form. Yeah. I mean, if she had
never met Prince Harry, is this more or less
where she would have ended up anyway, just, you
know, with a smaller bank account and less security?
That's a great question. Maybe she was always
destined to be this ultimate American lifestyle
mogul, a kind of mashup of Goop and Oprah and
Martha Stewart. Maybe the royal chapter wasn't
the destination. Maybe it was just a massive,
incredibly painful detour that gave her the global
platform she needed to finally execute the business
plan she probably had in her head back in 2014.
So is she a duchess who is now playing an actress?
Or was she always an actress who, for a few years,
played a duchess? I think based on this timeline,
she's an entrepreneur who realized that the title
was just the ultimate brand accelerator. It gave
her global name recognition overnight. And now
that she has the platform, she's jettisoning
the parts that didn't work and going back to
the work she actually seems to enjoy. Well, one
thing is for sure. With Sunshine Sacks back on
the payroll and a movie in production, 2026 is
going to be anything but quiet for the Sussexes.
It never is. The story is never over. That is
all the time we have for this deep dive. We've
unpacked the source material as best we can.
But as you said, the story is still being written.
Thanks for listening. Thank you.