The Duchess of Sussex, 42, debuted her new brand American Riviera Orchard on Instagram on Thursday, in a move that has surprised even her most loyal fans. The brand, which has already been compared to Martha Stewart as well as Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop, will reportedly focus on homewares, with rumours that Meghan launched the brand to coincide with a new cookery show on Netflix.
While the promotional video for American Riviera Orchard teased only vague details on social media, trademark documents filed in the US revealed Meghan is planning on branching out into homewares, with the release of tablecloths, serveware and crockery.
Royal expert Richard Fitzwilliams claimed Meghan only launched the project after their previous deals with Netflix and Spotify failed, so she was forced to return to go back to her days of blogging to drum up more interest in the Sussex brand. “There's no doubt at all that the Sussex is making use of the material they have to do a bit of oneupmanship. It's obvious,” he told The Sun.
Harry and Meghan have also seen their £16 million Spotify deal implode last year, after it was revealed they did not meet “productivity benchmarks”, with the mother-of-two’s panned Archetypes podcast the only project launched on the music streaming site. Their relationship with Spotify was further damaged when the company’s executive Bill Simmons called the couple out for their alleged lack of work. “The f**king grifters. That’s the podcast we should have launched with them,” he fumed.
Their Netflix deal, which was a whopping £78 million , is coming to an end next year, but the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have barely released any projects on the streaming giant. Back in 2021, their docu-series Harry & Meghan was released, and in September last year, Harry’s Invictus Games documentary hit the streamer, but there have been no rumblings of any more TV or movie projects from the Sussexes.