The second episode of Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex’s new lifestyle and cooking show, With Love, showcases her love for jam-making. She fondly recalls how this passion originated from childhood memories of her grandmother making apple butter.
While picking blackberries in the garden of her $14.5 million Montecito mansion with Prince Harry, Meghan reveals that she envisions her kids associating the sweet fragrance of jam with coming home from school and enjoying the comforting aroma of slow-cooking fruit.
She humorously predicts her children, Archie and Lilibet, aged five and three, appreciatively saying, ‘Oh, Mom’s making some preserves again,’ as they bask in the delightful scent of her homemade jams.
So far, so wholesome. Except there is just one problem.
Seven thousand miles away from the millionaires’ enclave in California that she and Harry now call home, sits her 80-year-old estranged father Thomas Markle, whose mother Doris is the ‘grandmother’ Meghan so lovingly refers to in her new Netflix series.
Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, shows off her baking skills in her show With Love, Meghan
Mr Markle says that while Doris – who died in 2011 aged 91 – ‘adored’ Meghan, she would be spinning in her grave at some of her granddaughter’s latest claims.
For example, at one point in the show Meghan corrects her friend, actress Mindy Kaling, for calling her ‘Meghan Markle’.
In what some viewers called ‘an agonisingly rude moment’, Meghan says: ‘It’s so funny you keep saying ‘Meghan Markle’, you know I’m ‘Sussex’ now.’
As Mindy looks confused, Meghan – who has only visited Sussex once – adds: ‘You have kids and you go, “No, 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”.’
Speaking for the first time about his daughter’s latest foray into showbusiness – many have described the Netflix series as ‘make or break’ for the Sussexes – Emmy award-winning Mr Markle told The Mail on Sunday: ‘My mum loved Meghan very much but she would be so disappointed to hear that Meghan no longer wants to use the name “Markle”. My mother was proud to be a Markle. So am I. Meghan never had a problem with the Markle name until she met Prince Harry.’
With bitter sarcasm, he adds: ‘Now I have to say, “I am Meghan Sussex’s dad.”‘
Mr Markle was cut off by his daughter after suffering two heart attacks on the eve of her 2018 wedding to Prince Harry. ‘I still don’t know why she dumped me,’ he says, though he believes she never forgave him for missing her big day.
She later accused her father of failing to get into a car she sent for him – even though he was in hospital at the time.
Meghan in an old photograph with her father Thomas Markle, from whom she is now estranged
For Mr Markle, who relocated to the Philippines earlier this year from his previous home in Rosarito, Mexico, the thought of watching his daughter’s Netflix show is too painful.
‘I haven’t seen the show but I’ve seen a ton of clips and I’ve read many stories,’ he says. ‘I might sit down and watch it one day but I’m not sure.’
But after viewing online clips of Meghan tending her bees, cooking in the kitchen of a rented home near her own mansion, and even transferring shop-bought pretzels from one plastic bag to another, he believes his daughter comes across as ‘inauthentic’.
Mr Markle – an old Hollywood hand who has worked on shows including Married With Children and General Hospital – says: ‘Cooking show are horrendously boring unless the presenter has a passion for it.
‘You have to be authentic to hold people’s attention. When you are stuffing the turkey’s a*** it has to look like you’re having fun doing it. Unfortunately Meghan has never been authentic. She has to think about everything. She’s not spontaneous. Everything she says is pre-planned and rehearsed. It makes me laugh because I know all her looks and expressions.
‘She’s trying so hard to be perfect,’ says Meghan’s father
‘I know when she’s faking it for the cameras. She’s trying so hard to be perfect that she tenses up every time the camera is on her.
‘The best cooks are funny, they mess up, they are human. She just wants to be perfect. It’s sad because she’s trying so hard to stay in the limelight.’
On Friday it was revealed that the second series of With Love, Meghan has already been filmed and will air on Netflix this summer as part of the streaming giant’s five-year $100million deal with the Sussexes.
The deal is due to end in October, with many in Hollywood believing Netflix will choose not to renew.
Just as Meghan once accused a member of the Royal Family of being racist – only for the late Queen to declare that ‘recollections may vary’ – for Mr Markle much of what his daughter says in the show does not tally with his own memories.
At one point, Meghan claims she was a ‘latchkey kid’ who grew up eating TV dinners. She says: ‘I grew up with a lot of fast food and also a lot of TV tray dinners. It feels like such a different time but that was so normal with the microwavable kids meals.’
Not so fast, says Mr Markle. Meghan lived with her father full-time from the age of 11 until she went off to university at 18.
Prince Harry appears in a clip from the show
Her mother Doria, who is featured briefly in the show (Mr Markle says it is ‘sad’ Meghan does not give his ex-wife a hug when she arrives for a party) was often away because she worked as a travel agent and later ran a small strip mall shop selling items from around the world.
The suggestion that Meghan was a ‘latchkey’ child grates on Mr Markle, who says he would personally pick Meghan up from school every day or send a car to fetch her if he was too busy.
‘We occasionally ate TV dinners, which family doesn’t?’ he says. ‘But I was working two jobs so money was never an issue. We would eat out at least three times a week and order in the rest of the time.’
Far from growing up on fast food, Meghan’s favourite restaurant was Musso & Frank in Hollywood, a legendary – and very expensive – restaurant, which has been around since 1919.
Stars including Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby and Marilyn Monroe regularly dined in its red-leather banquettes eating steaks, which average around £35 to £50.
Meghan also loved Hamburger Habit, a now defunct restaurant on the Sunset Strip, where director Steven Spielberg, Elizabeth Taylor and Cher were regulars. Mr Markle said: ‘Like any single father who did a long day’s work, I’d occasionally put a TV dinner in the microwave. But most of the time we’d go out.
Skincare entrepreneur Vicky Tsai joins her friend for a segment of the show
‘After school I would either pick her up myself and we’d go out to eat or I’d send a car to bring her to the set. She grew up on the sets I worked on. She was never a latchkey kid.
‘We lived in a great area, which was packed with restaurants. We ate out all the time. At weekends when I wasn’t working I’d take her to a dance class and then invite her and all her friends out for a meal.’
Mr Markle said his former wife is a great cook while Meghan never showed much interest in cooking as a child.
As a child in small-town Pennsylvania, Mr Markle said his mother would make spreads like apple butter to help the family’s budget go further.
His daughter’s show, while aspirational to some, strikes him as ‘out of touch with the real world’. ‘Meghan should make affordable food and show people how to stretch their food budget,’ he says. ‘I grew up in Pennsylvania and my mum was a great cook – lots of meat and potatoes and cabbage. Apple butter is a sandwich spread and very tasty and inexpensive.
‘The women who watch Meghan’s show are not all rich and privileged. I think people would love it if she focused on more economical dishes.’
He was particularly withering about Meghan’s love of vast fruit platters: ‘I don’t think most people these days can afford to go out and spend $90 on fruit. She’s out of touch with normal people.
‘She puts edible flowers on everything. No one has edible flowers handy. Sending kids off to school with edible flowers on their food is silly. Kids don’t like them and if you put edible flowers in a kid’s lunchbox they would probably get teased at school.’
Many have criticised Meghan’s ‘one pot spaghetti’, where she fries vegetables, adds raw spaghetti (which she calls ‘noodles’), then adds water and puts the lid on.
Mr Markle says: ‘Who makes spaghetti that way? You always boil the water, then add the spaghetti. It’s the most basic thing.’
Ironically, he last saw his daughter in person over a meal. It was Thanksgiving 2017 and Meghan was engaged to Prince Harry.
Harry borrowed a sprawling mansion in LA from a friend and Doria, Meghan and Tom all enjoyed a traditional meal of turkey and all the trimmings.
Mr Markle said: ‘Harry couldn’t make it but we had a lovely time. Meghan and Doria cooked and Meghan later posted a picture on Tig [her old lifestyle blog], which showed my hand and Doria’s hand on a gravy bowl. We shared a wonderful meal and I left. I never saw Meghan or Doria again.’
