In her new Netflix series, Meghan Markle invites friends and famous guests to a California estate where she shares cooking, gardening and hosting tips.
But if it all feels very familiar, eagle-eyed viewers have already spotted a series of similarities to old recipes and other shows just hours after the trailer came out.
Some have compared her ‘Ladybug Caprese Bruschetta’ to similar recipes; others spotted a similarity to a YouTube cooking show hosted by the Marchioness of Bath; and her beekeeping was noted for also being one of Kate’s favourite hobbies.
In the trailer for ‘With Love, Meghan’, the Duchess hosts celebrity chefs and famous friends including Mindy Kaling and Abigail Spencer as she prepares a range of perfectly presented dishes to a soundtrack of The Lovin’ Spoonful’s Do You Believe in Magic.
In one clip from the kitchen of the rented $5m reality TV Montecito mansion where the show is set, Meghan, who tells viewers she’ll share ‘some little tips and tricks’, makes a ‘Ladybug’-themed appetiser.
However, viewers noted that recipes for the dish have been around since 2015 on dozens of food blogs and Pinterest pages.
They also feature in the US lifestyle magazine First For Women in 2018 and the popular TikTok account Home Cooks World in 2023.
The ingredients in the latter’s recipe are a baguette, pesto, mozzarella, basil, cherry tomatoes, kalamata olives, sesame seeds and olive oil. First for Women meanwhile said the dish was ‘packed with mood-boosting calcium and energising antioxidants’.
Meghan with actress Mindy Kaling in the trailer for ‘With Love, Meghan’, released yesterday
Some viewers have compared scenes from Meghan’s trailer to those in the YouTube cooking show ‘Emma’s Kitchen’ hosted by Emma Thynn, Marchioness of Bath (above)
Another part of the trailer showed Meghan trying beekeeping – but some royal fans pointed out that this is also one of her sister-in-law Kate’s longtime hobbies.
The Princess of Wales was photographed happily tending to a hive at Anmer Hall in Norfolk in an image released in May 2023 to mark World Bee Day.
Kate is known to make her own honey – while Queen Camilla is also a keen apiarist, and keeps bees at Raymill, her six-bedroom retreat in Lacock, Wiltshire.
Camilla is also president of Bees For Development, a charity protecting bee habitats in more than 50 countries; while Buckingham Palace is home to four beehives on an island in a lake in the garden, and there are two hives in Clarence House’s garden.
One viewer tweeted: ‘If anyone wanted to read between the lines, this is yet another opportunity for Netflix, Reed Hastings and Markle to continue trolling the British monarchy, since all Meghan is trying to do is to imitate an English lifestyle, dressing and keeping bees like Catherine.’
Another wrote that it was ‘something the King, Prince William and Princess Catherine been doing for years – no, a beekeeper she’s not. Copied that off the royals.’
And a third said: ‘And you know who keeps bees? Princess Catherine at her home in Amner Hall. It’s one of her passions. Meghan has never had an original idea ever.’
Other viewers have compared scenes from the trailer to those in the YouTube cooking show ‘Emma’s Kitchen’ hosted by marchioness and chef Emma Weymouth.
