Meghan Markle's Year of Media Highs and Lows: From 'Spare' to 'South Park'

Aug 02, 2023

The past 12 months have been the duchess' busiest since she left the monarchy in 2020 with Harry and moved to the U.S. to begin careers in the entertainment industry.

No longer restricted by the global COVID shutdowns and in the aftermath of welcoming their second child, Princess Lilibet, Meghan and Harry began releasing their biggest media projects to date from the summer of 2022 onwards.

First, Meghan's Archetypes podcast hit the airwaves, which was followed by the couple's Netflix docuseries as well as the publication of Harry's memoir. Though each of these projects broke records, they brought with them equal shares of praise and criticism.

Newsweek looks at Meghan Markle's year of media highs and lows as the duchess celebrates her 42nd birthday.

In August 2022, Meghan launched her first solo podcast venture as part of the multi-million-dollar streaming contract between her, Prince Harry and Spotify.

The stated aim of the 12-episode series titled Archetypes was to "dissect, explore and subvert the labels that try to hold women back" and featured interviews hosted by Meghan in relation to each of the labels. The show began with an episode centered around the word "ambitious" and featured an interview with the duchess' friend and tennis player, Serena Williams.

Subsequent episodes included interviews with celebrities such as Mariah Carey (discussing the word "diva"), Paris Hilton (on "Bimbo"), actress and writer Mindy Kaling (on "singleton") and comedian Ziwe (on "the angry black woman").

The show's inaugural episode became one of the fastest-streamed on the Spotify platform and within two-days toppled The Joe Rogan Experience for the coveted number 1 spot on the Spotify podcast charts.

The show received mixed reviews from critics but maintained buzz around its weekly episode releases, despite a four-week hiatus taken when Queen Elizabeth II died in September.

During the Archetypes run and after the death of Queen Elizabeth II, Meghan was revealed as a cover star for Hollywood industry bible, Variety, giving an in-depth interview about her ambitions for a career behind the camera with Harry.

Meghan was due to be honored as a member of the magazine's 2022 class of Power of Women, but, owing to the queen's death, the magazine ran her profile and glamorous photoshoot after the period of mourning had passed.

In the interview, Meghan ruled out a return to acting but revealed for the first time that, together with Harry, the couple had been working on a much speculated docuseries about their life and exit from the monarchy.

The couple's Netflix docuseries, Harry & Meghan, was formally announced with a dramatic official trailer on December 1, 2022.

The show was produced as part of the couple's content creation deal with Netflix signed in 2020 when they left the royal family and the show, directed by two-time Oscar-nominated director Liz Garbus, promised to cover the bombshell period of their split from the monarchy.

The show debuted in two parts on December 8 and 15 amid a wave of backlash both from the public and critics, both for technical issues (such as the use of stock footage appearing to overdramatize events) and for the nature of their bombshell revelations against the royal family and press.

Despite this, the show smashed Netflix's records for any docuseries, with over 81 million hours of content viewed in its first week, according to the streamer.

Though the couple's popularity took a hit after the release of the Netflix show, it would be nothing to the backlash faced after the publication of Harry's memoir just a month later in January 2023.

Though Meghan did not participate in the promotion of the book, nor is she credited with having any input in its writing, her popularity sank to its lowest on record (alongside Harry's) on both sides of the Atlantic.

The book, like the other media releases, broke records, becoming the fastest-selling nonfiction book of all time. However, Harry's inclusion of details about behind-palace-walls arguments and issues opened not only his family up to criticism but also himself and Meghan.

After Spare's release, both Meghan and Harry saw themselves become targets of jokes in mainstream media in an unprecedented way.

The memoir was roasted by a number of late-night hosts, namely Jimmy Kimmel, who featured a number of skits and monologues on it over several evenings.

Though Harry was often the main target, Meghan was given a mention in some of these grillings. In a section of his recurring "Back in my day" skit, host Seth Meyers joked about the couple repeatedly breaking their reported "silence" since leaving the monarchy.

"Fiddlesticks! Back in my day, Prince Harry was breaking his silence with an Oprah interview, and then he broke his silence with a multi-part Netflix documentary, and the other day he broke his silence on 60 Minutes," Meyers joked about the royal's media blitz promoting his book.

"In fact, as far back as anyone can remember, Prince Harry has been out there somewhere breaking his silence. I personally wish him the best. I hope he continues to live a long healthy life with his wife Meghan, living in privacy except to come out and break their silence one or two times a month until the end of time."

Perhaps the most explicit roasting faced by Meghan and Harry of the past 12 months was the entire episode of adult animated comedy South Park dedicated to them, titled "The Worldwide Privacy Tour."

In the show, a fictional royal couple with several physical similarities to Harry and Meghan are spoofed as hypocrites for appearing to demand privacy while self-promoting themselves. The show sparked tabloid speculation that Harry and Meghan would sue its creators. A spokesperson for the couple called this "baseless and boring."

As the coronation of King Charles III approached in May 2023, speculation began over whether Harry and Meghan would make a highly anticipated appearance at the historic ceremony, given the state of their strained royal relationships following their media bombshells launched at the monarchy.

In April, this speculation was halted when Buckingham Palace announced that Harry would attend the ceremony alone, while Meghan remained at the couple's home in California with their two children.

This opened Meghan up to criticism in the U.K. including a front-page article in tabloid The Sun, which appeared to critically compare Meghan's skipping of the coronation to Charles' stepping in to walk her down the aisle at her 2018 wedding. It carried a full-page photograph of Charles and Meghan at St George's Chapel on the wedding day under the headline: "The King was there for you...So sad you can't make it for him."

Despite this, Meghan received a boost from the U.S. public when a poll for Newsweek revealed that her decision to skip the event was backed by 42 percent of American respondents while it was opposed by 12 percent.

Over the past 12 months, Meghan has won a number of awards, starting with a People's Choice Award for her Archetypes podcast in December 2022, followed by a Gracie Award for the same series in March 2023.

In December, the duchess accepted a Robert F. Kennedy Ripple of Hope Award for addressing racial injustice and raising awareness for mental health.

This was followed more recently in May 2023 with a Women of Vision Award, which was given to Meghan for her "global advocacy to empower and advocate on behalf of women and girls."

In July, it was also announced that the royal's Harry & Meghan series had been nominated for a Hollywood Critics Association TV award.

After the Women of Vision Awards in New York City on May 16, 2023, both Meghan and Harry were involved in what their team later called a "near catastrophic" car chase.

The couple's spokesperson called the chase with paparazzi a "relentless pursuit" that lasted "over two hours," resulting in "multiple near collisions involving other drivers on the road, pedestrians and two NYPD officers."

Though the account drew damning parallels with the events that led to the death of Princess Diana in 1997, soon after the spokesperson's account was made public, the NYPD, the New York mayor and a taxi driver who drove the couple for part of the pursuit, appeared to give a more subdued description of the events.

This led to skeptical reporting in the British and U.S. press, though a poll for Newsweek conducted after the event found that 52 percent of Americans said they believed Harry and Meghan's account was accurate.

Meghan's most recent round of media grilling came in the days after it was announced that the royal and Prince Harry had mutually agreed to "part ways" with streaming giant Spotify after just one podcast series together.

On the same day that the announcement was made, podcast host and Spotify executive Bill Simmons made headlines by describing the couple as "f****** grifters."

"I wish I had been involved in the 'Meghan and Harry leave Spotify' negotiation," he told listeners of The Bill Simmons Podcast. "'The F****** Grifters.' That's the podcast we should have launched with them."

The couple and Spotify did not publicly respond to these comments. But just days later a fresh embarrassment came when talent boss Jeremy Zimmer told an American news outlet that it "turns out Meghan Markle was not a great audio talent, or necessarily any kind of talent."

The CEO of one of the biggest talent agencies in the States, United Talent Agency (UTA), Zimmer added: "And, you know, just because you're famous doesn't make you great at something."

Weeks earlier, Meghan had signed with the talent agency William Morris Endeavor and again, the royal did not publicly respond to the criticism.

James Crawford-Smith is Newsweek's royal reporter based in London. You can find him on Twitter at @jrcrawfordsmith and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.

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