As ever, Meghan Markle was back in her happy place this week: a sunny garden in the billionaire’s paradise of Montecito, California, this time hawking her new $255 luxury flower boxes.
The Duchess of Sussex even enlisted her kids, Princess Lilibet, 4, and Prince Archie, 6, to promote her collaboration — including gardenias and peonies paired with tea and honey from her As Ever range —with swanky floral delivery company High Camp Supply.
Even off this brief sales pitch, people were quick to point out that High Camp goes against the ideals that Markle, 44, and her husband Prince Harry allege to hold so dear. The company ships orders from its California farm via FedEx Priority Overnight to ensure customers get the petals within 24 hours being cut.
“Marketed to the ultra wealthy just to have flowers on the table for a week. How’s that commitment to making more thoughtful choices going??” one person wrote on X.
“The eco hypocrites are at it again. So while Harry is preaching about climate change and reducing our carbon footprint through Travalyst, Meghan is collaborating with a company that actively INCREASES carbon emissions on a daily basis, for FLOWERS that will die within a week,” said another.
Sources argued that many flower suppliers ship by air. But it’s just another day in Sussex land, where the duchess’ best attempts to present a glossy, golden image are often at odds with headlines portraying her as so demanding and arrogant that even Netflix boss Ted Sarandos won’t take her calls without a lawyer on the line. (A claim that Netflix denies.)
It’s all part of the fallout of news that her As Ever partnership with Netflix is over after just 11 months. The brand was launched in tandem with her show, “With Love, Meghan,” which, as Page Six revealed, won’t return for a third season.
So what exactly went wrong, where does Markle go from here — and does she have any remaining support from Sarandos, one of Hollywood’s most powerful men?
Inside Netflix, there are many who are happy to talk about what really went down.
“Netflix put millions behind this deal and I don’t think they saw a return whatsoever. They just cut a loss,” claimed one company insider. Others said there was no point in the streamer working on the brand when there was no show.
Industry experts point out it can take years to launch a brand and return all investment — noting that it took Amazon nine years to become profitable, while Hailey Bieber’s Rhode beauty line did not return for investors for three years.
Page Six has reached out to the Sussexes and Netflix for comment.
Meanwhile, “There are a lot of people who really did not enjoy working with Meghan on ‘With Love…’,” admitted another staffer, adding “there is no love lost” between many at Netflix and Markle and her and Harry’s Archewell production company.
Markle herself has said she found making the show tough. “It’s a year of learns … Eight episodes for two seasons — it’s a lot of work,” she said last October at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit.
She also admitted on her now-defunct podcast, “Confessions of a Female Founder,” that launching a brand can be “incredibly liberating” and also “incredibly lonely.”
And while a rep for the Sussexes said the plan was always for As Ever to stand on its own two feet, Netflix sources insist the announcement about severing ties came as a shock to staffers.
“Why ever in the world would Netflix put all this money into the deal and then say the plan was to let It go after 11 months?” said the staffer. “You can try to spin it whatever way you want, but it’s just not true.”
Indeed, Markle — who worked closely with Josh Simon, Netflix’s VP of consumer products — initially made it clear that she expected a long partnership with Netflix, one that could last up to a decade.
While she could not speak to the “specifics of the terms of the deal,” she told Fortune in April 2025: “We are very, very much in harmony on how we see the growth of this, and the trajectory over the next five to seven years.”
The Netflix deal was once positioned as central to Markle’s post-royal business strategy and she touted it as the “right move for the global expansion we want.”
But in a detailed report this week, Variety claimed that Netflix was sitting on a surplus of As Ever products, including tea and baking mixes, totaling more than $10 million in value, echoing a previous Page Six exclusive report that the company had been giving away products to staffers for free to unload it.
Sources now tell us that all inventory has been transferred from Netflix back to As Ever custody.
Sarandos signed Markle and Harry, 41, to an estimated $100 million exclusive production deal back in 2020, only for it to be downgraded to a first-look agreement last year.
The mogul once made it clear he was excited about the As Ever partnership, telling Variety last March, “I think Meghan is underestimated in terms of her influence on culture” and calling the brand “a big discovery model for us right now.”
While one Hollywood source told us that the relationship had become so tense that Sarandos would not take Markle’s calls, this was roundly denied by Sussex reps.
“Honestly, there are people [within Netflix] who would rather not work with Meghan and Harry — they are fed up — but Ted always wants to give them one more chance,” said a well-placed industry insider.
The Sussexes are Montecito neighbors with Sarandos and his wife, former US ambassador to the Bahamas Nicole Avant, and we’re told they remain friends.
Still, “Ultimately, Meghan and Ted don’t have a relationship like they used to,” according to the insider.
While there have been reports that Sarandos is no longer following As Ever or Markle on Instagram, Netflix reps on Friday told Page Six that he had never followed these accounts. Avant, however, does follow Markle. Netflix also stated that Variety’s claims that Sarandos is “fed up” with both Markle and Harry is “inaccurate.”
Although there were raised eyebrows inside Netflix when some reports claimed that Markle herself cut ties with the “cautious” streamer fearing she was being held back, we are told Simon’s departure was, indeed, a “turning point” for the duchess.
“I think she felt like she had been abandoned by … other people did jump in, but Josh was the day-to-day person and involved in every discussion,” said one insider familiar with the partnership.
Additionally, As Ever never really “fit in” with the products that Netflix makes to promote its hit shows including “Squid Game” to “Bridgerton.”
“That was merch — and As Ever is not merch,” said the insider, adding that it takes a very different skill set to build a brand.
Markle went on to hire her own independent brand consultant and creative director, Devin Pedzwater, who also worked on Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop.
Although sources admit that As Ever experienced challenges in stocking inventory last year, they say the issues have now been alleviated and the brand is focused on introducing collaborations and new “drops” this year.
The first launch of the year, the “Fell Asleep Here” bookmark, sold out in just 10 minutes, we are told while a Valentine’s Day collaboration with Compartes chocolatier sold out in under an hour
As for the evergreen products — jams, teas, honeys and flower sprinkles — Markle is believed to have sold 862,535 boxes, or $36 million worth, of her “signature fruit spread.” While insiders say that is not even her top-selling product, sales figures are under wraps.
As for the Sussexes’ future with Netflix, their planned movie adaptation of Carley Fortune’s novel “Meet Me at the Lake” has been in development for the past three years, while “The Wedding Date,” based on Jasmine Guillory’s hit book, has yet to find a director and cast.
Sources told Page Six that the Sussexes have now found a director for “Meet Me at the Lake” who has completed a rewrite of the project. They also claim other projects with Netflix are on the slate, though that could not be verified by either side.
After Netflix did not buy the documentary “Cookie Queens,” produced by Harry and Markle, Roadside Attractions acquired the US rights and we are told it will have a theatrical release.
On Wednesday, Netflix chief content officer Bela Bajaria said of the Sussexes: “I would say don’t believe whatever you read … We still have a relationship with them, we have movies in development with them, we have an amazing doc with them, they have things in development on the TV and film side.”
But an industry insider sniffed: “She is just trying to get Netflix out of this news cycle. Maybe Bela needs to start fact-checking.”
The question remains: In a crowded lifestyle market, can As Ever move beyond seasonal drops instead something a more durable brand?
It should be noted that Markle has now trademarked 12 products in Australia, where she and Harry plan to tour next month.
A source familiar with the brand insisted that’s a sign: “It’s evolving, and it keeps growing.”
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