Meghan Markle’s bosses at Netflix are ‘worried’ by the grim reviews of her new show and her own excited announcement of season two does not mean the Sussexes’ $100million deal has already been renewed, an insider told MailOnline today.
With Love, Meghan has dropped out of the top ten most watched shows globally as well as in the US and UK just six days after its release.
‘It’s not a runaway success’, MailOnline’s insider at Netflix has admitted, adding they understood that season two was filmed ‘back-to-back’ with season one last year.
On Friday the Duchess showed herself celebrating, with her arms in the air in her garden, as she said the show had been renewed for a second season. She admitted to having made ‘mistakes’ but insisted that she is ‘learning every day’, after her hotly-anticipated Netflix show was widely panned.
But one Netflix insider with links to the commercial arm of the streaming giant told MailOnline that the reviews have ‘worried’ the bosses, especially as Netflix is a partner in her As Ever brand. Meghan’s own father Thomas also gave a withering review yesterday and is upset by her dumping of the Markle surname for Sussex.
And a new season does not mean her Netflix contact has been renewed, MailOnline’s source says.
‘I know they filmed the shows back-to-back so in theory there is no second season it’s like with lots of Netflix shows it is already in the bag at the same time as the first one.
‘What this does is allow edits to be made to the show from feedback from press and Netflix viewers. It’s clever and cost effective. So no the overall contract hasn’t been renewed yet’.
Netflix’s bosses are said to be worried by the poor reviews of her series
Meghan’s excited announcement of Season 2 of her series With Love, Meghan, on Netflix
Two Netflix stores (pictured in Hollywood) will be the destination for the launch of Meghan Markle’s American Riviera Orchard brand, now known as As Ever
The source added that bosses were ‘worried’ about the poor reviews – especially as they are a business partner in her lifestyle brand, which will launch in their bricks and mortar stores in the coming months.
‘The industry bibles like The Hollywood Reporter and Variety are not keen on it’, they said.
‘Netflix bosses are all worried now because they have invested a lot in the product line. They don’t know when and how to roll it all out’.
MailOnline has asked Netflix to comment.
Netflix has said it will set aside space in two of their brand-new brick and mortar stores.
The first of the As Ever stands will open in two of America’s biggest retail centres, the King of Prussia Mall in Philadelphia and the giant Dallas Galleria.
But while details of products such as jam and pancake mix have emerged, the full range and price points have not.
One Netflix source told The Sun that they were happy with the level of coverage and interest in the show. Even though the delayed lifestyle series was slammed by critics after its premiere as ‘gormless lifestyle filler’, and normally supportive publications also turned on Meghan and her show.
Meghan Markle’s With Love show has a lowly 11 per cent rating from viewers, falling behind wrestling and sitcoms on Netflix’s chart.
The delayed lifestyle series was slammed by critics yesterday after its premiere as ‘gormless lifestyle filler’ with a ‘tangible desperation’.
It is now outside the Netflix Top Ten in all major nations.
Hollywood bible magazine Variety panned the Duchess of Sussex’s series as ‘a Montecito ego trip not worth taking’ in a no holds barred review.
‘The show plays out like a forced march, one in which Meghan’s guests must, as the price of getting to share an afternoon in a made-for-TV kitchen with her, praise her first,’ they wrote.
‘”With Love, Meghan” is made with a great deal of love — in the sense that the greatest love of all is the one that a person has for herself.’
Meghan Markle ‘s With Love show has a lowly 11 per cent rating from viewers with it behind wrestling and sitcoms on Netflix ‘s chart
Meghan pictured with Prince Harry who makes a fleeting appearance in his wife’s lifestyle series
The series has a lowly 11 per cent rating from more than 250 ratings from viewers on reviews site Rotten Tomatoes
The series has a lowly 11 per cent rating from more than 250 ratings from viewers on reviews site Rotten Tomatoes.
A scathing one star reviewer quipped: ‘This isn’t even a fun hate watch. It’s just bad.’
A fellow low scorer said watching With Love was the ‘worst few minutes of my life’.
Previously sympathetic left-leaning publications such as the Guardian have warned this could be the last show Meghan and her husband Prince Harry ever make for Netflix if it is not a ratings success – describing it as ‘pointless’.
Marina Hyde wrote: ‘The mildest way to describe this show is as a ghastly artefact of a particular cultural era that recently met its apocalypse. This show is sensationally absurd and trite, and if you watch it, you know it.’
In the Radio Times, columnist Caroline Frost cast doubt on claims in the Netflix blurb that Meghan would ‘reimagine the genre of lifestyle programming’ with her series.
She wrote: ‘This isn’t the most offensive TV show in the world, and useful for those who need to know how to pour Epsom salts into a jar, pour boiling water over pasta and daisies on a plate, but Brooklyn Beckham needn’t worry about giving up his chef’s hat just yet’.
Anita Singh, the Telegraph‘s arts and entertainment editor, gave the show a two-star review and said it was an ‘exercise in narcissism, filled with extravagant brunches, celebrity pals and business plugs’
She wrote: ‘The format is this: Meghan invites people to her pretend house – the show is filmed in an $8million farmhouse down the road from her $14million home – and they tell her how amazing she is. This happens for eight episodes’.
Katie Rosseinsky, senior culture and lifestyle writer at The Independent, gave the show a one-star review and said it was ‘queasy and exhausting’.
MailOnline revealed last week that a leading comedian, podcaster and Netflix star launched an excoriating review of Meghan Markle’s new show, calling it – and her – ‘highly inauthentic’, ‘fake’ and ‘phony’.
Christina Pazsitzky, a successful stand-up best known as Christina P, has concluded that the Duchess of Sussex is no ‘Martha f***ing Stewart’.
She filmed herself on TikTok reacting to watching the show and declared to her 1million followers: ‘I don’t know what the f*** this show is’.
‘She’s an actress playing the part of a human being right now, and it’s not working’, she said.
‘The problem from minute one is that she’s trying to be perfect all the time, and it reads as phony, as inauthentic and not fun’.
Ms Pazsitzky has had two successful Netflix comedy films called Mom Genes and Mother Inferior and lives in LA with her husband Tom Segura, who has also starred in three of his own Netflix shows. Both also have hugely successful podcasts.
Her intervention is a new blow to the streaming giant and the Sussexes, who signed a five-year $100million deal with them in 2021.
Netflix had hoped the couple would be their next Obama-style prestige stars but amid poor reviews and a series of flops since the Harry and Meghan documentary, many experts have predicted that With Love, Meghan could be the death knell for any contract renewal.
‘Meghan, you just need to be an actress. Just go act. You’re great in Suits. But when it comes to being a household branded name, you better be that thing through and through, otherwise people know that you’re being fake and inauthentic’, she said.
Describing one scene when she gets some honey from a beehive, Christina says: ‘She’s like: “I don’t even like honey, but now I appreciate it, because I see how hard it is to get”. And then she makes beeswax candles out of real beeswax. But she’s like, “I’ve never done this before”‘.
Christina concludes herself: ‘Yeah, you’ve never done any of this before. And I can tell, we can all tell’.
Christina Pazsitzky, a famous stand up and Netflix star, has panned Meghan’s new show
Meghan Markle filming for the Netflix show, With Love, Meghan, where she got honey to eat and wax for candles. But Christina claimed that it’s inauthentic
Christina also panned Meghan’s claims that she makes gifts for friends who visit. ‘She doesn’t really do this s**t’, she said
Christina told her near-1million TikTok followers that the show is highly inauthentic from the start.
She compared her unfavourably to Martha Stewart, saying America’s original lifestyle TV guru was believable because viewers knew that she did the same things on screen as off screen.
‘When Martha Stewart came out… I remember women being like, yeah right, like, who’s at home making their own beeswax candles? Yeah right. B***h who’s making their own croutons from scratch. Well, you know who was Martha f***ing Stewart, because that’s who she was. That’s who she is. She was doing all this crafty stuff, even when the cameras weren’t rolling.
‘But Meghan Markle wants you to believe that she is a beekeeper that when her friends come to visit, she is making bath salts for them in a jar. And you know what she’s doing for her dearest friend coming over to spend the night – she’s making bath salt for him, and she popped popcorn off a real corn on the cob. And then she goes, You know what this popcorn needs? Truffle oil. Like, what?’
Christina said that her guests will get, if they are lucky, wine, a bag of Cheetos and ‘weed’ or cigarettes if they smoke.
Questioning Meghan, she went on: ‘She doesn’t really do this s**t. There’s no way she’s making rainbows out of fruit every Saturday.
‘There’s no way she’s doing any of this. It hurts my stomach to watch it’.
