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Meghan Markle has celebrated her Netflix series, With Love, Meghan, entering the streaming site’s top 10.
The 43-year-old Duchess of Sussex shared a reel of cooking moments from the program on her Instagram Story on Wednesday. She also celebrated a major milestone for her show, as it’s currently the fifth most popular show on Netflix in the U.S. at the time of writing.
“For more recipes, fun and reasons to ‘Mmmm,’ check out the show — which in just 24 hours is already in the Top 10!” she wrote. “Thank you to all of you around the world who are tuning in!”
Despite Meghan’s celebratory Instagram post, her program has received scathing reviews.
In her one-star review, The Independent’s Katie Rosseinsky called the show “queasy and exhausting.”
“The only tea that is being spilled here is brewed with fresh mint picked from Meghan’s garden, or an allergy-busting concoction containing turmeric and cayenne pepper that she blends up for [longtime makeup artist Daniel] Martin,” she wrote.
“The only talk of culture clash with the British establishment comes when Meghan ponders why her husband says ‘ladybird’ instead of ‘ladybug,’ while fashioning a kid-friendly edible version of said insect from tomatoes, olives and tiny dots of balsamic glaze. Harry barely features, aside from a few ‘Men! What are they like!’-style references to his love of bacon.”
She concluded: “The heady blend of aesthetic curation, inspiring truisms and those inescapable edible flowers might well leave you feeling a bit queasy — or simply worn out at the prospect of having to adequately perform gratitude for all the thoughtful touches involved in Meghan’s ‘guest experience.’
Meanwhile, The Guardian described the program as “gormless lifestyle filler” and “so pointless it might be the Sussexes’ last TV show” in its one-star review. The Telegraph gave it two stars, branding the show “insane” and an “exercise in narcissism.”
In Variety’s review, the program is branded a “Montecito ego trip not worth taking.”
During the Netflix program, Meghan reveals how her homemade jam caused some friction with her celebrity friends. In episode two, she detailed how she soft-launched her brand American Riviera Orchard — now rebranded to As Ever — by sending friends jars of her homemade strawberry jam, numbered one up to 50.
“It was not a ranking, it was just ‘let me share them’ and then people started to take it very personally.”
Mindy Kaling, who appears in one episode of With Love, Meghan, tells her in a light-hearted exchange: “When I received that in the mail, a box of your preserves it was probably one of the most glamorous moments of my life. But then I looked at the label, and it said they were something like 50. And then I, of course, as a very hierarchical person, was like, ‘Who are these other 50? Does having a lower number make me more special…?”
During her conversation with Kaling, Meghan, who shares two children with her husband, Prince Harry, spoke with pride about being a royal. “You keep saying, Meghan Markle, you know, I’m Sussex now,” she said.
She added: “You have kids, and you go, ‘Now I share my name with my children’… I didn’t know how meaningful it would be to me, but it just means so much to go ‘this is our family name, our little family name.’”
