7 major revelations from Meghan Markleâs new series: Duchess of Sussex offers a glimpse into her personal life in With Love, Meghan
From what she loved about working on Suits to how she puts her family first, these are the most intimate details uncovered in With Love, Meghan
Meghan Markle has just debuted her new show on Netflix â and it contains a wealth of intimate details about the Duchess of Sussex
COURTESY OF NETFLIX
It's certainly been a long time coming â but Meghan Markle has finally debuted her new Netflix series, With Love, Meghan. On 4 March, the Duchess of Sussex's latest project hit screens, after it was postponed for several months due to the LA wildfires, and it's every inch what we've been lead to expect: tips for party planning, cooking, gardening and entertaining, all sprinkled with a healthy dose of LA star-power. There are, however, a few more personal insights into Meghan's life that viewers might not have predicted â from the Duchess' approach to fashion, to her first job and details of her family life. Here, we unpack the most significant moments from the seriesâ¦
1. Meghan's wardrobe isn't all designer garb
Given her penchant for labels like Dior, Emilia Wickstead and Givenchy, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the Duchess of Sussex owns cupboards stuffed with high-end pieces â and while she may have a weakness for one or two expensive brands, as she reveals on With Love, Meghan, she's also a fan of the high street.
At one point during episode two, Kaling asks Meghan about her outfit, telling her that her sense of style is âone of my favourite thingsâ. Meghan explains that she likes to take a high-low approach to fashion, teaming designer pieces with more affordable items, with her outfit at the time a case in point: a shirt by luxury Italian label, Loro Piana, matched with trousers from Zara.
And it's certainly not the first time Meghan has demonstrated a love for affordable fashion. For their first official visit to Sussex since being conferred the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Meghan wore a sleek, & Other Stories blouse which she paired â true to form â with a pricier Armani cashmere coat and a forest green Gabriela Hearst handbag.
Throughout With Love, Meghan the Duchess gives personal insights into her first jobs, her wardrobe and her time on Suits
JAKE ROSENBERG/NETFLIX
2. On first jobs â and relocating for Suits
Before breaking into the notoriously tricky acting world, Meghan held a variety of jobs â about which she reminisces at different points during her Netflix series. While she tried her hand at an ice cream shop called Humphrey Yogarts and with a doughnut seller, she also made some extra money while at Northwestern University by working at the coat check of a Chicago bar, before they encouraged her to try waitressing. Smiling as she recalls the incident, Meghan reveals that, during one particularly loud night, she couldn't hear customers' drinks orders properly â and was promptly demoted back to the coat check.
Of course, Meghan's big break came when she scored her role as Rachel Zane in long-running, successful series, Suits. âOne thing that you and I have in common is we were both on TV shows for a long time,â Kaling comments in episode two of With Love, Meghan, at which point the Duchess recalls how happy she felt to have the âconsistencyâ of the job.
Meghan Markle was a major character in Suits, which ran for seven successful seasons
USA Network/Getty Images
Asked about relocating for the show, she admits: âOkay, one season in Toronto â amazing. Two seasons â okay, is my life gonna be in this other place now?â But she embraced her new city: âThankfully, I love Canada. And I always tried to invite the cast over or people Iâd meet at the dog park â neighbours. I love making friends.â
Suits has lately enjoyed a resurgence, with younger audiences no doubt interested in seeing Meghan demonstrate her acting chops, but the Duchess told People that she puts the renewed popularity down to other aspects. âIâm not surprised that people are rediscovering Suits because it was so well written and so well produced,â she says, adding: âItâs a time capsule for me â I still have the pencil skirt from the first episode! Thatâs the one thing I kept.â
3. Family comes first
As is no doubt the case for many young families, Meghan admits that mornings are âfastâ in the Sussex household. âI wake up every morning and take a lot of pride in making breakfast for my family,â she says on the show. âMornings are fast. Gotta get the kids to school.â Nevertheless, there's always time for something delicious to eat: âI find when I'm cooking bacon, my kitchen very immediately becomes full of husband and three dogs,â she jokes, before adding that Prince Harry also makes a âreally goodâ breakfast.
At a World Mental Health Day event in 2023, Meghan said that being a mother was âthe most important thingâ in her life and, according to insider reports given to Us Weekly, she and Harry are united in their low-key, hands-on attitude to parenting. âThey take the kids to school, they pick them up, and they are very active and present with them throughout the dayâ says one of their friends. â[The children are] so well mannered. Archie is sweet and curious and playful, and Lili is vibrant and happy.â Another added that for Meghan and Harry, âthe focus is very much on raising their two children.â
4. If you want to be invited round, try learning mahjongâ¦
According to Meghan, she and her friends have recently taken up mahjong, which she describes as âreally funâ
COURTESY OF NETFLIX
During the series, Meghan reveals that she has picked up a few calming new hobbies in recent years, including flower arranging. In one episode, she visits a florist to pick up blooms for a lunch with friends, and reflects on learning the art at her baby shower while pregnant with her first child.
âI learned a lot of this when I was pregnant with my son, Archie. My girlfriends threw a baby shower for me, and one of the things we did was learn flower arranging. I started to find this really calming and meditative, so when I have a little bit of time at the end of the day, I do this. I have a glass of wine and just enjoy it,â she says, adding that she sets the scene with music. âI listen to a lot of â70s soft rock and a lot of yacht rock and a lot of soul. and then also French dinner party music.â
In another episode, the Duchess can be seen preparing for a games night with her friends, Tracy Robbins, Victoria Jackson, and Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, sharing that they've recently taken up the ancient game, mahjong. âWhat Iâve come to really love about mahjong is that the game itself is really fun, but what was so great was the idea of learning something new with your friends, together,â she muses. âItâs the feeling of community. It's become special for all of us. Weâre all at such different chapters in our lives. It's amazing that itâs just as meaningful for me as it is for Victoria or Tracy or Jennifer. We all really like it.â
The Duchess admits at several points during the series that food and cooking is her âlove languageâ
COURTESY OF NETFLIX
5. â¦Or cooking something special
On not one, but two occasions during the show, Meghan says that her âlove languageâ is definitely food. In episode six, she says: âI love feeding people. I think itâs probably my love language.â It's a sentiment she elaborated on in her interview with People, where she says that she inherited her love of cooking from her mother. âEven before I was a mom, I loved being able to nurture in that way. Some of my favourite childhood moments are the meals that my mom would make. Sheâd make a lot of soul food.â
It's something she wants to pass on to her own children one day. âI want my kids to have those same formative memories of things that I cook. We call them Mama Meals, and those are the ones that I hope they come back to when theyâre older, when theyâre married, and they have their own kids.â Presumably, the famous roast chicken that she made the night Prince Harry proposed is on the list.
With Love, Meghan is all about the joy of entertaining and packed with tips and tricks to make hosting easier
JAKE ROSENBERG/NETFLIX
6. Markle? It's Sussex, actually
In the second episode of With Love, Meghan, the Duchess welcomes her friend Mindy Kaling as a guest, with whom she discusses their respective childhoods. âPeople wouldnât believe that Meghan Markle ate at [fast food chain] Jack in the Box,â Kaling jokes at one point, at which Meghan gently corrects her: âItâs so funny, too, that you keep saying Meghan Markle. You know I'm Sussex now.â
The late Queen Elizabeth II bestowed the titles of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex on Prince Harry and Meghan for their 2018 wedding. Their children, Archie and Lilibet, were previously known as Master Archie Mountbatten-Windsor and Miss Lilibet Mountbatten-Windsor, but were granted the titles of Prince and Princess when King Charles ascended the throne in September 2022. They, like their parents, use Sussex as a surname, as is royal custom. Indeed, in March 2023, Meghan and Harry used their new titles for the first time to announcing Liliâs christening, and their names were updated to Prince Archie of Sussex and Princess Lilibet of Sussex on the royal familyâs official website.
In one episode with friend Mindy Kaling, Meghan reflects on the importance of sharing a name with her family
JUSTIN COIT/NETFLIX
As Meghan explains during the episode: âYou have kids and you go, âNo, I share my name with my childrenâ. I didnât know how meaningful that would be to me, but it just means so much to go, this is our family name, our little family name.â In an interview with People magazine, Meghan elaborates on this, saying that she had not recognised how âmeaningfulâ the concept of a shared name could be, calling it a âhuge part of our love storyâ.
7. But at the end of the day, perfect does not exist
The moment at which the Duchess becomes noticeably emotional during the series is a poignant one. Speaking with her friend Vicky Tsai, founder of the the skincare brand Tatcha, Meghan says: âIf you break something that is precious and valuable, itâs not broken... that fracture actually makes it more beautiful.â Vicky agrees, saying, âThings that have lived and been dropped and put back together again are more beautiful.â
Could this be Meghan's way of telling us that, despite the glossy veneer, she's keen to share more of her â sometimes difficult â life story? As she prepares to launch her new brand, As Ever, we should perhaps expect to see Meghan lift the lid on her personal experiences even more.