Meghan Markle Slammed For 'Cringe' Holiday Special: 'She Thinks She's Invented Christmas'
Meghan Markle's 'With Love, Meghan: Holiday Celebration' offers a glimpse into her Christmas preparations alongside her A-list friends.
Ever since Meghan Markle traded royal life for more freedom in the US, critics have been less than kind. Whether it's her lifestyle brand or collaborating with Netflix, the Duchess of Sussex has consistently drawn mixed reviews. Her latest project with the streaming giant, With Love, Meghan: Holiday Celebration, offers a glimpse into her Christmas preparations alongside her A-list friends. Commenting on the new release, royal expert Hugo Vickers dismissed it as 'cringe', claiming it lacked any genuine holiday spirit.
Speaking exclusively to The Sun, Vickers opined that her latest segment was 'artificial, expensive, and unrelatable.' He slammed, "I mean, it's as if she's invented Christmas, and frankly, she didn't. And where is the real, genuine Christmas spirit? You know, it's just not there. The whole thing was very cringe-making." The royal expert also had strong words for the Duchess's Christmas crackers, a British tradition introduced to her US audience. He remarked, "She talks about all the things that they were going to put into these crackers, and she talks about it as if no one's ever made a cracker or pulled a cracker."
The episode in question that Vickers singled out opens with Markle deciding to bake a batch of Christmas crackers for her family, selecting the gifts, jokes, and surprises that will go inside the familiar rolled cardboard tubes wrapped in festive paper. Traditionally, Christmas crackers are purchased ready-made and pulled apart by two people at the table, with the contents, a paper crown, a groan-worthy joke, and a small novelty trinket, randomly 'won' by whoever ends up with the larger half. The Duchess, however, took a different approach, crafting each cracker for a specific person and selecting gifts according to who she intended to receive them.
Vickers argued, "Of course, naturally, sort of relating crackers to being an English Christmas, as if to say, this is what the royal family does. It seems as if she is trying to link it back to the couple of Christmases she spent at Sandringham." Explaining Markle's alleged strategy, he further stressed, "It's product placing and marketing and, you know, relating it to them [the royal family], which is the ticket on which they travel."
Markle's holiday special has also drawn some positive feedback, thanks in part to Prince Harry's frequent appearances and support for his wife. In one episode, he sneaks a sweet kiss from Markle before the trailer transitions to the festivities at their Montecito mansion. His brief holiday cameo feels especially warm, given that he was absent from the show's second season. Alongside her husband, Markle is joined in the trailer by several A-list friends, including tennis champion Naomi Osaka, chef Tom Colicchio, close friend Kelly McKee Zajfen, and producer Lindsay Roth.
