Leaving the monarchy was the easy part, but replacing it has turned out to be the actual job.
At a glance
- Known for
- Rachel Zane on *Suits*, the Oprah interview, the royal exit dubbed 'Megxit'
- Before fame
- Freelance calligrapher who did Dolce & Gabbana's holiday correspondence between auditions
- Off-screen
- Wrote to Procter & Gamble at age 11 and got a national dishwashing soap ad changed
Rise to Fame
Briefcase #24 on Deal or No Deal was the high point for a while. Hollywood didn't have a lane for a biracial actress in the mid-2000s. She's written that she 'wasn't black enough for the black roles and wasn't white enough for the white ones,' and the work reflected it: guest spots on CSI, Fringe, and 90210, none of them memorable.
Suits fixed it with Rachel Zane, seven seasons that made her recognizable on cable but not famous in any real sense. A blind date in July 2016 changed the category entirely, and within two years she'd married Prince Harry at Windsor Castle. She was arguably the first mixed-race member of the modern British Royal Family, which mattered more to the world than anything she'd done on screen. The acting career became a footnote to the bigger story.
In the Spotlight
A $100 million Netflix deal in 2020 was supposed to fund the post-palace empire. Spotify parted ways after one season of her Archetypes podcast. Netflix downgraded the deal to a first-look arrangement after nearly six years without a scripted project. Her lifestyle brand, launched as American Riviera Orchard and relaunched as As Ever after trademark problems, lost Netflix as its financial backer too.
Netflix renewed With Love, Meghan but the show ranked below Suits reruns on the platform. The show that made her a working actress still outperforms everything she's launched since leaving it. Only 19% of Britons say they like her.
Side Notes
Hand-lettering Dolce & Gabbana's holiday cards and the invitations for Robin Thicke and Paula Patton's 2005 wedding (a marriage that also didn't last) paid the bills between auditions. She grew up visiting the set of Married... with Children because her father ran the lighting department.
That father, Thomas, had two heart attacks before the Windsor Castle ceremony, didn't attend, and hasn't met either of his grandchildren since. Her half-sister, 17 years older from his first marriage, sued for defamation and lost. The family she married into gets all the headlines, but the family she came from tells you more about the cost.