Foreign critics have joined British reviewers in savaging Meghan Markle’s Christmas special, accusing her of being ‘out of touch’ in the ‘tectonically tacky’ show.
The Duchess of Sussex tells an American chef how to make crackers and reveals she puts a love letter inside the one she makes for Prince Harry in the new episode.
But reviews in the likes of the Washington Post, Irish Times and Sky News Australia have been as brutal as many were for the first two series of With Love, Meghan.
It comes after the show was derided in the UK press – getting zero stars in the Daily Mail, one in the Telegraph and Independent and two in the Guardian and Standard.
Also yesterday, the Mail revealed Meghan’s father Thomas Markle, 81, is in intensive care in hospital after undergoing emergency surgery in the Philippines.
Washington Post screens critic Monica Hesse was particularly dismissive of the new special, saying it continues Meghan’s ‘experiment with aggressive hospitality’.
She wrote that the Duchess’s Netflix show is ‘not exactly the future that she imagined’ because ‘her repatriated future would have been unimaginable to anyone’.
Ms Hesse added: ‘No matter how genuinely Meghan tries to come across on screen, I felt irritable toward her.
‘Either her advice felt so basic as to be condescending (Yes, Meghan, even we peasants understand to hang ornaments so they catch the light), or so elevated as to be out of touch (Babe, I work full time and clean my own toilet; I don’t have time to make my family members personalised advent calendars), and always delivered with a level of chipper that nobody with children younger than eight should be able to relate to.’
In the Irish Times, contributor Ed Power wrote that the ‘awfulness of this onslaught of Christmas naffness seems obvious to everyone except poor Meghan’.
He added that Harry, who appears towards the end, seemed ‘ruddy with embarrassment at being dragged into his wife’s tectonically tacky lifestyle show’.
Mr Power described the episode as lasting for ‘an ominous 56 minutes’ and joked how New York restauranteur Will Guider was ‘astonished to discover ye-olde-world tradition of Christmas crackers’.
The one-off episode comes after the Sussexes signed their new watered-down, first-look deal with the streaming giant in August.
And Mr Power said: ‘Before they head off into the streaming sunset, this one final horror remains.’
He added: ‘Confronted with his wife’s purgatorial salad, for instance, Harry’s good cheer evaporates faster than his uncle Andrew’s sweat in a London nightclub.’
In Australia, 9Honey royal reporter Natalie Oliveri said Meghan ‘presents the most un-festive feeling Christmas special ever but there’s one saving grace: Prince Harry’.
Ms Oliveri wrote had ‘expectations were low’ – ‘but as Americans tend to do Christmas (or ‘the holidays’) well, and Meghan is American, it had so much potential. But the hour-long special failed to deliver.’
Guests on the special include ‘a new friend’, tennis star Naomi Osaka, for whom Meghan serves her ‘favourite go-to’ crudite platter – this time made of green vegetables – and a warmed cider.
The pair head to the craft barn to decorate cookie plates for Santa and mugs with pen and paint, where Meghan confesses she is ‘painfully bad’ at tennis, and also at throwing and catching.
But Ms Oliveri said Osaka’s inclusion in the show was ‘unexplained and she struggled to show much enthusiasm about being invited into Meghan’s world’.
The writer did however concede: ‘Fans of the Duchess will love every minute of With Love, Meghan: Holiday Celebration. My sister enjoyed it and was hoping for a part two, before I had to disappoint her by confirming it was a one-off only.’
On Sky News Australia, writer and broadcaster slammed Meghan’s ‘unwatchable’ special, adding: ‘It was like a form of Chinese torture, and I say this as someone who has painstakingly watched everything she’s put out.
‘I cannot overstate how devoid she is of a personality. The one shining light in this latest Christmas special is that Prince Harry managed to chew through his leash just in time to make an appearance.
‘It’s just very unentertaining, it’s very bland, the episodes are too long … it’s just unwatchable.’
However Meghan did find some support in the US from Forbes in a glowing review by contributor Sophia A. Nelson – who has previously written positive pieces about the former actress.
Ms Nelson described the Duchess’s tips on decorating a Christmas tree as giving a ‘subtle but powerful reorientation from aesthetic to authenticity’.
In the show, Meghan reveals she loves Christmas trees, advent calendars and wreaths – with trees allowing you to ‘really encapsulate your family story, really feel the passage of time and the different chapters of your life through the ornaments’.
And Ms Nelson wrote: ‘The special consistently nudges us away from the pressure to impress and toward the desire to be present.’
She added: ‘Meghan is not teaching viewers how to impress. She’s showing us how to care. How to choose connection over perfection. How to reclaim December from chaos and return it to what truly matters: family, friendship, ritual, and joy.
‘And in a world saturated with polished, performative holiday content, this special feels refreshingly human.’
It comes after the Daily Mail’s Annabel Fenwick Elliott branded the special as a ‘sad, self-indulgent, cringy wash of beige’ and hit out at the Duchess for striving ‘to be relatable’, calling her and Osaka’s interactions ‘thoroughly awkward’.
The Telegraph said the programme was ‘quite mad and a little bit sad’, while the Guardian advised British viewers ‘to take as many anti-emetics as medically advisable, then assume the crash position’ prior to pressing play.
In the show, Meghan urges people to try to make ‘every day’ of December ‘special’ as the year moves to an end, adding: ‘But don’t feel like you have to do it all.’
The Duchess recommends adding wax seals to wrapped presents to elevate them, and letting tree ornaments ‘find their light’ as she offers up tips for the festive season.
She dresses up in matching festive red pyjamas with her friends, and makes handmade personalised crackers, adding in a lavender roll-on scent for her four-year-old daughter Princess Lili, a tiny toy burger and fries for six-year-old Prince Archie, and a ‘little love letter’ for Harry.
Meghan remarks: ‘Lili really likes trying to be a grown-up lady at the moment.’
She adds: ‘My husband’s has a little love letter, a chocolate, a little hat’, and she labels the cracker, ‘My Love’, rather than ‘Harry’.
Of Archie, she says: ‘Now I’m on to Archie and I’m doing burgers and he loves the colour red.’
The Duchess, who spent her first royal Christmas with the late Queen and the royal family at Sandringham in Norfolk in 2017 when she was engaged to Harry, tells of learning about the ‘connected and sweet’ tradition of crossing arms to pull Christmas crackers together.
‘Living in the UK, it’s just such a part of… Christmas holidays, for sure,’ she tells one of her guests, Mr Guidara, as they prepare to craft crackers.
‘It actually does feel really connected and sweet,’ Meghan adds.
Archie and Lili do not appear in the episode but Harry, who featured briefly in the first season of With Love, Meghan but not the second, makes a cameo near the end.
The Duke walks into the kitchen while Meghan and visiting restaurateur Tom Colicchio are cooking.
Harry also comes face to face with a dish made up of all the things he does not like.
Colicchio cooked his grandfather’s beet salad – a sentimental family dish the chef makes each Christmas Eve – made of beets, black olives, fennel, anchovies and pickled vegetables.
As Meghan lists the ingredients, having previously revealed Harry ‘hates all those flavours’, the duke’s eyes widen and he says: ‘Oh wow. That’s like the anti-salad.’
At the end of the segment, Meghan kisses Harry on the lips again and puts her arm around his neck as she tells her husband: ‘Thank you for coming.’
With Love, Meghan: Holiday Celebration aired on the same day the King and Queen hosted the German state visit, and just hours after the Princess of Wales published a personal letter to guests attending her annual carol concert tomorrow.
The first series of With Love, Meghan launched in March, coinciding with the unveiling of the Duchess’s As Ever brand, which sells products including raspberry jam and flower sprinkles, which she repeatedly promotes throughout the show.
The festive range for sale on the asever.com website features a 43g spiced cider mulling spice kit priced at $16 (£12) and a three-pack of spreads in a gift box for $42 (£32).
With Love, Meghan – Holiday Celebration is now streaming on Netflix
