Meghan’s Former Hometown Delivers Harsh Verdict on Failed Year: ‘Most Disappointing Celebrity’
Her former hometown paper argues a year of high expectations slowly deflated as projects failed to deliver.
Meghan Markle’s hometown newspaper has delivered an awkward verdict, naming the Duchess of Sussex the “most disappointing celebrity of 2025”— because expectations were never fully met. The label comes from the Toronto Star, the city where Markle spent seven key years filming Suits before her life shifted toward royalty and global fame. She has often spoken fondly of Canada, saying it gave her a rare sense of normalcy during that period, with space for routine and relative anonymity.
The opinion piece, written by Patricia Treble, argues that Markle entered the year with momentum firmly on her side. “Meghan Markle was poised for a huge year. Instead, she’s our most disappointing celebrity of 2025,” Treble wrote. The problem, she suggests, was not a lack of opportunity. “All the ingredients for Markle becoming a worldwide hit were there: a beautiful, ambitious woman fronting a rapid succession of projects designed to keep her in the public eye from January to December.”
What followed, however, was not the breakout arc many anticipated. “The strategy didn’t work,” Treble noted. “It wasn’t an abject failure or a scandalous catastrophe, but the Year of Markle slowly deflated as each project failed to deliver as expected.”
Treble thereby pointed to a string of stalled and underwhelming ventures. “There’s no sign of a second season for her podcast,” she wrote, noting that Netflix “hasn’t officially renewed her show on the eve of its one-off holiday special.” More significantly, the streamer ended its exclusive and reportedly lucrative five-year deal with the Sussexes, replacing it with a more modest “first peek” arrangement. “As of now, no new projects have been greenlit,” Treble added.
That shift is notable given the scale of the Sussexes’ original Netflix agreement, widely reported to be worth around $100 million, before being restructured earlier this year into a multi-year first-look deal for film and television projects. The irony is that Toronto occupies a special place in the Sussexes’ shared narrative. It was there, during the 2017 Invictus Games, that Harry and Markle made their first public appearance as a couple. Years later, Harry would thank the city during the True Patriot Love Foundation National Tribute Dinner for giving him 'a wife.'
Yet Treble’s criticism goes beyond project timelines and contract terms, landing instead on celebrity strategy itself. “She’s got all the advantages — she landed in Hollywood in 2020 as a major international figure — but she has evolved into a bad celebrity because she doesn’t understand her role in the culture,” she wrote. The problem, in this framing, is not exposure but inconsistency.
Treble contrasts Markle’s approach with those who have mastered modern fame. “Meghan could be famous by being open and real. It worked for the Kardashians, who got rich by working non-stop to sell themselves to a world eager to see their latest reinventions.” Instead, she argues, Markle’s public output has felt scattered. “Meghan is a flitter,” Treble wrote, pointing to aborted or short-lived initiatives.
Among them were a ShopMy page that appeared and disappeared within months, podcast runs that ended early—“She completed only 12 podcast episodes on Spotify and nine on Lemonada,” Treble noted--and a branding pivot that raised eyebrows. “She launched her brand as American Riviera Orchard, complete with a soft-focus video of her gliding through her mansion in an evening gown, only to switch to As Ever when she couldn’t secure the trademark.”
