Meghan Markle’s Christmas special dropped on Netflix on Wednesday morning. The special has only been on the streaming service for a few hours. Unfortunately for Meghan, it’s already being widely roasted by critics.
In fact, the reviews are so bad that this might just be Meghan’s biggest flop yet. Given how many fails she has had over the years, that’s saying a lot!
Meghan’s Christmas Special Torched By Critics
In With Love, Meghan: Holiday Celebration, Meghan meets up with various alleged celebrity friends. She then gives them tips on how to do things like wrap presents, make holiday treats, and decorate a tree. Viewers were blown away by the 56-minute special in the worst way possible. Indeed, they savaged it as being “quite mad and a little bit sad.”
“It’s the syrupy hypocrisy and our hostesses’ deep lack of self-awareness that continue to make her and this show so unlikeable,” reviewer Annabel Fenwick Elliott wrote for Daily Mail as she gave the show zero stars.
“If only she could lean into her waspish, Type A personality – poke a little fun at herself, even – she could just about be endearing, in a Monica-from-Friends sort of way,” she continued.
In her review for the Times, Hilary Rose described the special as being “unfathomable.” Referencing the classic “Twelve Days of Christmas” carol, she warned that it features “four pointless crafts, three random ‘friends’, two unseen kids, one English prince and a duchess in a pear tree, or at least making pear syrup.”
Not stopping there, Rose wrote that Meghan’s guests “queue up to say implausible things, running the gamut from moronic to trite and then emote joy.”
As for the special’s dialogue, Rose lamented that it felt like “the English language has been fed through Google Translate and found wanting.”
More Critics Weigh In
It was the Telegraph’s reviewer Anita Singh who labeled the special as being “quite mad and a little bit sad.” She found the “most awkward section” of the episode to be when the tennis star Naomi Osaka showed up. Singh scathingly wrote that Osaka “has never met Meghan before. And, judging by her expression, won’t be meeting her again soon if she can help it.”
“Meghan’s tips are imparted in an easy-breezy manner as she waxes lyrical about family traditions and spending the holiday with loved ones, determinedly ignoring the elephants in the room,” Singh wrote.
This was seemingly a reference to the fact that Meghan is estranged her own family. Many feel that she’s also the cause of Harry’s estrangement from the royal family.
Speaking of Harry, he shows up for a cameo at the end of the special. According to Singh, however, it doesn’t go well.
“[Harry] is appalled at the sight of a beetroot, pickled vegetable, black olive, anchovy and fennel salad (‘Oh, wow, that’s like the anti-salad,’ he says) and who can blame him?” she stated. “Just give the poor man a sausage roll and let him have a happy Christmas.”
In her review for the Independent, Hannah Ewens described Meghan’s special as being “numbing content in the background of our holiday season. White noise to dull the senses.”
Finally, in her review for The Guardian, Lucy Mangan wrote, “I feel both offended and harmed, but in the spirit of goodwill I will add a star to my rating in gratitude for the fact that at least we are safe now until next year.”
Ouch, that has got to sting for Meghan!
Meghan’s Humiliating Netflix Downgrade
These reviews could not be worse for Meghan, given how desperate she was for this special to be a hit. Indeed, this comes four months after Netflix downgraded Meghan and Harry from their $100 million contract. Instead, Netflix gave them a far more modest “first look” deal moving forward.
Meghan and Harry had signed their $100 million Netflix contract back in 2020 after they stepped down as senior royals. That deal is set to expire next month.
On August 11, Netflix announced that it will not be renewing Meghan and Harry’s $100 million contract. Instead, Netflix has given them a “multi-year, first look deal for film and television projects.” This “downgrade” is the same one that Netflix gave to Barack and Michelle Obama.
“In practice, it is a downgrade from the 2020 overall deal that birthed Harry & Meghan, Polo and With Love, Meghan, among other projects,” The Hollywood Reporter reported.
“The overall-to-first-look extension mirrors the move Netflix made recently with the Obamas — as well as others — for their Higher Ground banner,” the publication continued. “In both cases, the exclusivity carried by their respective, splashy original deals has been removed.”
It certainly seems that this special will do nothing to help Meghan get back in the good graces of Netflix. Sorry, Meghan, but it’s safe to say that we can now add this to your long list of fails!