In the weeks since the premiere of her new Netflix series With Love, Meghan, Meghan Markle has received tons of backlash. Indeed, the lifestyle show was panned by fans and critics alike.
Now, Meghan has found herself embroiled in a new scandal. Unfortunately for her, the “ethical” handbags that she’s selling for around $900 have been found to be manufactured by Rwandan weavers who are earning as little as 10 pence an hour.
Meghan Hit With Damning New Scandal
Last summer, Meghan became a minority shareholder in Cesta Collective. According to Daily Mail, this business was “set up by two wealthy New Yorkers who employ a small army of Rwandan women to weave their bags.”
Cesta is a brand that promises “dignified employment opportunities for talented female artisans.” However, it has since been revealed that Cesta pays some of the women who make their handbags almost nothing.
How sad is that?
Despite this, Meghan is helping to sell the bags on social media. She’s even earning commission on each item sold via her new ShopMy site. ShopMy’s co-founder and president Tiffany Lopinsky has boasted that her “creators,” which is what she calls people like Meghan, can make over one million dollars a year selling items on her site.
“We’ve had creators make over a million dollars in commissions,” Lopinsky recently said. “The higher earners on our platform can make $100,000 per month, but it varies widely.”
So some people are getting rich, just not the poor women in Rwanda.
Related: Meghan Markle, Prince Harry On a ‘Victim Olympics Campaign’ Says ‘Family Ties’ Star Justine Bateman
Meghan Makes Hundreds Per Handbag
It is believed that for each Cesta handbag sold through her store, Meghan takes home around $271 in commission. Cesta Collective specializes in woven bags. They are made using a basket-weaving technique used by female artisans in Rwanda. Once the Rwandans weave the baskets, they are shipped to Italy. There, they are crafted into expensive handbags. Meanwhile, the Rwandan weavers make the baskets from their cement or mudbrick homes in rural villages in the African nation.
One weaver said that she makes less than $12 per handbag. It takes her around three days to make each one if she works eight hours a day.
“We use our income to supplement what we earn from farming, but it’s difficult,” she lamented. “I can’t say the money is bad, but I do wish it was more.”
Related: Meghan Markle’s $100M Netflix Contract Has Not Been Renewed Despite Her Show Getting A Second Season
Meghan’s Netflix Show Flops
This comes at a difficult time for Meghan. Her lifestyle Netflix show With Love, Meghan, which dropped earlier this month, is being panned by critics and fans alike. Indeed, they find it to be “inauthentic.” Variety blasted With Love, Meghan as being a “Montecito ego trip not worth taking” in a review that held nothing back.
“The show plays out like a forced march, one in which Meghan’s guests must, as the price of getting to share an afternoon in a made-for-TV kitchen with her, praise her first,” Variety stated. “With Love, Meghan is made with a great deal of love – in the sense that the greatest love of all is the one that a person has for herself.”
Check out a trailer for With Love, Meghan below.
At the time of this writing, Meghan has yet to publicly respond to her handbag scandal. It remains to be seen if Meghan will continue partnering with Cesta Collective, now that this has come to light.
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