Meghan Markle's Netflix flop fails to make the top 10: Duchess of Sussex's With Love, Meghan was watched by just 5.3m viewers and ranks at No 383

Daily Mail​

18-07-2025

The Duchess of Sussex 's lifestyle show With Love, Meghan failed to break into Netflix 's top ten programmes - or even the top 300 - for the first half of 2025 as her dreams of media domination continue to flounder.
The lifestyle show produced as part of Meghan and Harry's $100million deal with the streamer was a relative flop, new official figures reveal.
With Love, Meghan, which was widely panned, is ranked at No 383 in 2025 so far with just 5.3million viewers across the globe since it was first broadcast in March.
As Ever, which showed Meghan cooking, gardening and hosting friends, was outperformed by hundreds of shows in the first six months of this year.
Millions more people watched repeats of Suits, which made Meghan Markle a star before she met Prince Harry.
Its 5.3million viewers put it roughly on a par with the second series of BBC hit Peaky Blinders, a 2007 series of Gossip Girl, kids show Grizzly and the Lemmings and a true crime show called Worst Ex Ever.
But there is worse news for her husband the Duke of Sussex, whose passion project documentary Polo ranks at 3,436 out of around 7,000 shows with a disastrous 500,000 views globally.
Netflix has released the data in its six-monthly engagement report.
To put As Ever and Polo's viewing figures into context, the most popular show was the British drama Adolescence, which got 145million viewers this year and was released only couple of days after Meghan's show.
Popular shows included the drama Missing You which got 58million viewers and Department Q which drew 25million in the six months to the end of June.
The murder mystery drama, The Residence, got 33 million viewers – and has been cancelled. It's said that its budget was too big, and audience too small for it to get a recommission.
That's not a problem for With Love, Meghan, which was commissioned for two series from the outset.
The second series, which filmed directly after the first, is expected to go out later this year and will include an appearance from the Duchess' friend, model Chrissy Teigen.
Sources indicate that a third series will be announced soon, with Netflix boss Ted Sarandos a massive fan of Meghan, who he calls 'The Rockstar.'
This is despite it being branded an 'exercise in narcissism' by the Telegraph, 'toe-curlingly unlovable TV' by The Guardian and suffering a rating of 36pc on Rotten Tomatoes and just 3.2 on IMDb.
The fact that Netflix has partnership with her business, As Ever, can't hurt.
Both of Meghan's initial 'drops' of products sold out within hours, despite critics complaining about the quality of her jam and wine, and online mockery about her love of flower sprinkles on everything. That will have made money for both parties.
Sources at the streamer had said earlier this year that With Love Meghan, which was about hostessing and cooking, had only gained 'so-so' ratings and this is borne out. It made its debut in the Top Ten globally and in the US but then dropped out after a week.
The good news for Meghan that the hours viewed comes out at 4.47 – which is an impressive retention rate.
It has eight episodes of a little over 30 minutes, so the people who were watching the show stayed until the end.
Harry's documentary Polo went behind the scenes at the elite sport and was derided as dull and ridiculous when it went out.
Half a million views puts it on a par with re-runs on a nine year old cartoon, He Man: Masters of the Universe.
In March, when With Love, Meghan was released MailOnline revealed that her bosses at Netflix were 'worried' by the grim reviews.
It 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 admitted.
On the day of the launch, 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.
Meghan's own father Thomas gave a withering review and was upset by her dumping of the Markle surname for Sussex.
And a new season does not mean her Netflix contract 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.'
One Netflix star even 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 comedian 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 one million 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'.