Just hours after the release of the second series of Meghan Markle’s lifestyle programme With Love, Meghan, critics have shared their savage reviews of the show, calling it everything from “needy” to “‘narcissistic”.
The anticipated second season of the show was released on Netflix this morning, which follows the widely-panned first season that premiered earlier this year, and sees Meghan share cooking, crafting, and hosting tips with a range of celebrity pals and experts.
In the second instalment, Meghan is joined by guests such as US model and T V personality Chrissy Teigen and Queer Eye star Tan France, as well as podcaster Jay Shetty and his cookbook author wife Radhi Devlukia. While chefs joining Meghan include Clare Smyth, who runs Core, a three-Michelin star restaurant in London, and Jose Andres, who set up the World Central Kitchen.
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Despite the line-up of celebrity figures featuring on the show, critics have shared their scathing reviews of the second series, with The Telegraph giving the lifestyle a two-star rating, panning the season as “marginally less mad but more needy” than its first instalment.
The review went on to call Meghan a “Montecito Marie Antoinette”, and called the series as a whole “boring and at times, pretty insufferable”. The Telegraph's Anita Singh added that Harry's absence from the show - despite the programme being based on the couple's Californian home life - was becoming “increasingly weird ”.
The sentiment was echoed by The Guardian, who dismissed the show as a “gormless lifestyle filler”. The publication also gave the second series a mere two stars, as the review went on to say how Meghan’s show is “so painfully contrived that it’s genuinely fascinating,” before questioning whether “Meghan’s impulse to sprinkle flowers over everything is a choice or a compulsion”.
The Times was equally cutting, branding the eight-part season “a series in search of a meaning, fronted by a woman in need of some cash”. The Times’ Hilary Rose added: “With Love, Meghan is baffling. It occupies the sweet spot where irrelevant meets intolerable. It's like an advert for somewhere we'll never go and aren't invited. It’s an entry for Miss World, not a concept for ten hours of TV.”
Throughout many major publications, the general consensus of the show seems to be that despite the range of high-profile guests, the show lacks substance, while Meghan comes across as inauthentic.
While professional critics seemed to unanimously dislike the second series of With Love, Meghan, some of the Duchess’s loyal fans online have shared their opposite thoughts on the show, with one viewer writing on X: "It was such a joy and laughter. I loved every episode.”
Others jumped to Meghan’s defence, as one person wrote: “Meghan is so relatably girlie and endearing. Such a lovely soul, unassuming, not uppity at all.” Another fan pointed out: “You can see how much more confident and joyful Meghan is within herself this season.”
Meghan also defended her show in an appearance on The Circuit podcast with host Emily Chang when she was asked about the divisive reviews of season one of the show, and how the hate comments landed, as she said: “I think I know who I was trying to meet, so if you know your audience and you know your demographic, well they love the show, and my partners love the show and that’s why we have a season two.”
“So I often think of the negative voices, are they saying negative things and then secretly going home and making my single skillet spaghetti? Maybe they are. So from my standpoint, the intention of the show was to show more of myself, to share tips that I love in my life, and to have fun.”
The show comes on the back of Meghan and Prince Harry announcing a new watered-down deal with the streaming giant, in contrast to their reported 100 million dollar (£74million) contract five years ago.
