Meghan Markle Is Juggling Ambition and the Pressure to Provide for Her Family

The desire to buy was there. But the products were not. In an interview with Meghan Markle published on May 27, business magazine Fast Company reported that the Duchess of Sussex’s As Ever brand team, in coordination with business partner Netflix — which debuted her With Love, Meghan lifestyle and entertaining program in March — spent a year preparing and forecasting demand for the food products.

Still, everything — from her signature raspberry preserves and dried flower sprinkles to her honey, teas and crepe and shortbread cookie mixes — sold out in just 45 minutes. The outlet declared it a “runaway success.”

Yet instead of ramping up production to meet rabid demand, nearly two months later, not a single item had been replenished. Though the As Ever Instagram account teased that a restock is coming soon — “your favorites are returning, plus a few NEW things we can’t wait to show you. Coming this month…get excited!” read the post— and Meghan herself told Fast Company there are plans to “expand the brand,” the outlet further claimed that new products won’t be announced until the first quarter of 2026.

 

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More shocking, the mag reported that Meghan “wants to take a step back” from the brand. Ostensibly it’s so she can, as the outlet reports, “gather data from the launch, and figure out exactly what As Ever could be.” But a source tells Star there are concerns the 43-year-old is struggling under pressure, sparking worries about her decisions. On the May 6 episode of the just-wrapped debut season of her Confessions of a Female Founder podcast, the Duchess of Sussex admitted she’d been facing “self-doubt,” recounting how she recently asked herself, “Is this gonna work? Like, is this actually gonna work?”

According to the source, “Meghan has a lot going on, to be sure, but it’s frustrating for her staffers and business advisors alike. She’s not very good at making snap decisions. She likes to mull things over and that leaves people hanging.”

Making Mistakes

Meghan’s owned up to erring as she gets her footing, including with the disastrous March 2024 decision to announce her brand’s name — American Riviera Orchard — before she’d secured the trademark. She famously had to change it just months before it launched after facing multiple legal hurdles amid protests from other companies with similar monikers. “I was figuring it out in real time,” she confessed in February, thanking fans for giving her “the grace to make mistakes and figure it out.”

Six years after she was first branded “Duchess Difficult,” says the source, Meghan tries to tune out criticism. “But people around her say she’s still hurt by it, that it doesn’t reflect her work and communication style.” An issue, adds the source, is that “Meghan has a lot of ideas, and she may welcome other people’s opinions, but then she doesn’t always follow through.”

In Fashion

Now, it seems like the former Suits star may be launching another business entirely. “The category of fashion is something I will explore at a later date,” Meghan teased to Fast Company. “Because I do think that’s an interesting space for me.” In March, the former royal made headlines when she imitated social media influencers by launching a ShopMy page where followers can purchase items, with Meghan earning a small affiliate fee, from a curated collection of pieces she recommends. “Emerging designers love Meghan,” says the source, “because when she wears one of their pieces, it’s an instant sellout.”

She also has her critics. “She is a style icon,” concedes the source, “so it’s no wonder she wants to venture into fashion and start a collection of her own. Though the truth is, Meghan is only as good as her collaborators.” With the right people working with her, “she could pull it off,” muses the source, “but how she will juggle it with everything else going on in her life is anyone’s guess. She couldn’t even keep her jam and honey in stock!”

Balancing Act

More than five years after Meghan and husband Prince Harry, 40, decamped to California, they’re still chasing success — and need to work to support their luxe life at their $14.65 million estate in ritzy Montecito. While Meghan admitted on the finale of her eight-episode Female Founder podcast she was “taught to not even talk about money,” she now says she struggles with the “guilt mentality surrounding having a lot” of it. (The podcast, which debuted in April, has since garnered nearly 1 million downloads.) But the reality is, she needs the cash. “There’s no doubt Meghan is under pressure to earn and establish her family’s financial stability as they continue building a life apart from the royals,” confirms the source of the mom to Archie, 6, and 4-year-old Lilibet.

The couple’s lucrative Spotify deal ended prematurely in 2023 after producing just a single season of Meghan’s first podcast, Archetypes. And though recent reports indicate Netflix will renew its production deal with the Sussexes they first inked five years ago — the first season of With Love, Meghan ranked in the streamer’s global top 10 series list and has already been greenlit for a second season — it’s expected to be a smaller payday. And right now, claims the source, Harry, who said he remains devoted to “a life of service,” has “no other means of income other than speaking engagements and his work as a consultant.” Already having money doesn’t always make fears about it go away, Meghan revealed on the podcast. “There’s a scarcity mindset that it’s easy to attach to, of like, ‘I’ll never have enough.’”

At the same time, she’s trying to balance her career with motherhood. Though she said on the May 20 episode of her podcast that it’s “so important that my kids see me as a working mom,” Meghan struggles with it. She’s made peace with featuring them on her Instagram page, for example, by drawing a line at showing their faces. “Every post she shares is instant news and that’s good for business,” says the source, adding, “Meghan is very careful about their privacy.” And in May, she bragged about putting work aside to care for the kids.

When Archie woke her up at 2 A.M. to tell her he’d lost his first tooth, she proudly noted, “I had a lot of business meetings the next morning, but I still chose to cuddle with him the rest of the night.” Still Meghan, who left some money and a little dinosaur under his pillow, kept her eye on her business, reasoning, “Those mom moments energize me to be a better founder, a better employer, a better boss.” (She’s also admitted the kids have a nanny she’s called “amazing.”)

Royal Critics

Of course, some observers watching from afar will never be impressed. According to an insider, her in-laws have scoffed at Meghan’s efforts to reinvent herself — for all her talk about female empowerment when she joined the family, a royal insider tells Star she’s now, in their view, a woman who’s hosting a cooking show.

“They see it as a joke,” says the royal insider. “They couldn’t be happier when they hear critics say she’s no more than an influencer. She failed to inspire them when she was a senior working royal. And she’s not impressing them now.”