Back in June, Puck News had a particularly slanted piece about the Duchess of Sussex, Netflix and As Ever. The piece contradicted itself several times, claiming that the As Ever rollout was haphazard because Meghan is a chaos agent, then in the same breath, suggesting that Meghan wasn’t in control and the whole thing was a Netflix operation and they were just using Meghan as the face of everything. What’s clear is that a lot of people in Hollywood have been keeping their eye on Meghan, Netflix and As Ever, and there seems to be a lot of jealousy and behind-the-scenes bitching. I bring up that Puck piece because that was the first time I heard that Meghan had some kind of discussion about a possible collaboration with Flamingo Estate. It sounded like the Flamingo Estate people were mad that they couldn’t work something out with Meghan, and like they have regrets (regrets buried under a mountain of snide jealousy). Well, it sounds like someone from Flamingo Estate is shopping the same old story to another outlet. Behold, an exclusive in Parade:
Meghan Markle is having a harder time landing lifestyle brand partnerships than she thought she would, a source exclusively tells Parade.
“Meghan has been trying to get a lot of brands to partner with her and work with her but she’s been getting turned down,” the insider claims. “It’s been a lot harder for her than she thought it would be.”
The source continues: “She wanted to partner with Flamingo Estate to do some products together, and they took a meeting with her but ultimately declined a partnership. She was very disappointed by this one specifically. She really wants to break out into the lifestyle space and have her own line of products like candles, foods, etc. She doesn’t get why it’s been such a struggle.”
Parade reached out to Markle’s team, as well as Flamingo Estate, but did not immediately hear back. The company, inspired by the Spanish-style L.A. home of Richard Christiansen and his partner, touts “daily essentials for a well-lived life.” They sell everything from candles and soaps to fresh fruits and vegetables. Recently, Naked Gun star Pamela Anderson partnered with the brand for a limited-edition release of “Pamela’s Pickles,” described as the “most delicious pickles we’ve ever tasted.” Proceeds from Pamela’s Pickles benefit the California Wildlife Center.
In March 2024, Puck reported that Markle, 44, wanted to become an “active partner” in Flamingo Estate and even displayed the brand’s products in the home she shares with husband Prince Harry. However, a source told the publication at the time, “Ultimately, the estate realized they didn’t want to take the business in that direction.”
“She really wants to break out into the lifestyle space and have her own line of products like candles, foods, etc.” Did this source miss the fact that two As Ever food drops sold out in a matter of minutes? And yes, Meghan should totally do a candle line. At this point, though, she doesn’t need to partner with anyone for any of these products. As I said, it really sounds like the Flamingo Estate people are running around and spreading nasty stories about her – like, I would believe that Meghan approached them at one point and pitched a collab, and maybe Meghan got turned down. She probably just shrugged and went ahead and built her own thing, which is already wildly successful. As for other partnerships… it would not surprise me if she had some stuff in the pipeline, perhaps something with Le Creuset. Or maybe some kind of high-end candle company – As Ever jam-scented candles! PLEASE!
Meanwhile, the As Ever team is posting shortbread cookies even though the fakakta shortbread mix is sold out! Please, RESTOCK! And send out those free jams, like you promised!
Photos courtesy of As Ever’s IG.
I really want to try the raspberry spread and flower sprinkles. Since they are marked as sold but still on the website I’m assuming they will be restocked at some pt?
I agree 💯
We’re going into fall 🍁. I’m owed jam and can’t wait to cozy up to the fireplace 🔥 with Meghan jam on toast, 🥯, 🧈 Muffin 🧁😁
It’s time to restock so I can begin the hibernation diet
I’d like a restock on those cookies please. The adults in my life ate them up. The kids asked where is the chocolate, lol, the heathens. But they stored and lasted really well in the cookie jar. Well-worth the price. I have no idea if Meghan tried to partner with Flamingo Estates but I would ask how anyone knows that this one really disappointed her. How would someone know that? But thx for letting us know that Flamingo estates doesn’t want to work with Meghan but is happy to work with Pamela. It’s this kind of competitive framing that’s nasty work. Pam’s Pickles sound cute. If FEstates is encouraging the framing of it that way that’s pretty ick but it could just be parade idk.
Gosh, I read this and thought, why Pam ok but not Meghan and the answer my head gave caused me to give it a shake. And then I thought, yeah, probably. Because otherwise, why are they so proud of their association with one woman, and so proud as to boast they declined working with Meghan? I can think of only one reason for this attitude being publicized, and it ain’t pretty.
It’s just annoying bc Pamela herself has said nothing negative about Meghan. And yet people are really trying to pit these things against each other. I don’t know if FE is fanning these flames or if it’s just click-bait hungry journos but it does no one any favors. It’s not flattering to anyone or anything except spite.
Unnamed source called an “insider” is the only source for this story. That plus copy from a single Puck magazine article. “Parade reached out to Markle’s team, as well as Flamingo Estate, but did not immediately hear back” — since Parade hasn’t updated their online story, there is zero confirmation from Flamingo. Surprised “Senior Entertainment Reporter at Parade, Lanae Brody” is happy to have her name on this schlock.
She does have her own line of food why would she partner with someone else when she is partnering with Netflix? This sounds like old tea from 2 years ago before AsEver launched. What brand partnerships would she be pursuing when she has her own brand? I don’t believe this comes from Flamingo Estate the owner said he adores her in an interview with the Times.
It really does seem like someone saw that Pamela is partnering with Flamingo Estates on her pickles and decided to make it into a story. Which is gross. People can like Pamela’s Pickles, Flamingo estates and Meghan’s As ever brand.
Did her pickles sell out?
What a weird story. Doesn’t reflect well on Flamingo Estates either.
“Senior Entertainment Reporter at Parade, Lanae Brody” is 👍🏾👍🏾😀 writing stories that pit women against women for clicks — on the basis of one unnamed source she calls an “insider” (inside of what/whom?) and copying from a single Puck article. Since she/Parade hasn’t revised their article of 8/12/25 4:53 PM EDT, we know Flamingo Estates gave ZERO confirmation for Lanae or Parade for their MeghanBaitSmear.
Yeah, it sounds like something before the launch of As Ever and some brands might have been cautious of being associated with Meghan with all the very negative coverage by the BM and some medias in the US. These brands were probably not sure how Meghan’s products will land and did not take the risk. They are now probably full of regrets and very jealous of Meghan’s success.
Seems everyone wants a piece of Meghan. They know as well as we know, the sky is limitless for her endeavors. When she gains control of production, she will be a force.
I respectfully disagree with you. The sky is not limitless for her nor anyone else. Also, Meghan was entering into an entirely new (to her) type of business. It would make sense that some investors were cautious and did not want to take a chance on whether it might succeed. And Meghan can, through no fault of her own, be very divisive.
On Emma Grede’s podcast Meghan stated that she turned down multiple partnerships/branding ideas that were sent her way. She stated that she’s “left a lot of money on the table” in order to be true and authentic to herself and to be able to sleep well at night. Did Meghan want to partner with Flamingo Estates in some type of brand partnership or a specific line of some sort, it’s quite possible. Are Flamingo Estates kicking themselves for turning down a brand that sells out in minutes? Absolutely!!
To me it sounds like they wanted her and she turned them down and they are upset by it seeing how successful she is doing on her own.
This was my exact thought – they approached her and she turned them down (because she’s developing her own line and partnered with Netflix) and now they’re bitter and badmouthing her.
When will companies learn badmouthing potential partners (even when it didn’t work out for whatever reason) doesn’t make them look good?
@Ginger…………PRECISELY!
But thats too simple, straightforward and commonsensical for messy gossip lovers to swallow.
Let’s see:
H&M moved to California on the kindness of a then stranger Perry in 2020, then COVID happened, the Meghan’s law suit against Daily Fail, miscarried, and pregnancy happened; tried to put out contents for their Spotify & Netflix deals; tried to going through the daily assaults from BM, RR, KP, Royalists, and haters; made the decision to do the Oprah interview to correct all the lies spurt about them, etc. I doubt having a life style brand was on her mind then.
She made jams & gifts for her friends & associates. She did not think of making a lifestyle/ cooking show until Neflix suggested it. She has said initially she only set out for “As ever” to be sold at her local Farmers Market (she got the license fot it). A small operation, really. Then Netflix invested and she had to change the strategy to scale up the productions (and retains her control over the company). It seemed unlikely she’d sought out FE when she only set out to be a small localized operation back then.
Sure, some people and organizations (which believe the nonsense from media/BM about Meghan) don’t want to associate with her and that’s fine. But you sent out gossip to advertising you rejected Meghan was not a good look. Maybe the derangers or the rich MAGA will buy their products, but it wouldn’t be me. There’re a lot of lifestyle brands out there besides FE.
This is an incredibly bad look for Flamingo Estates if they’re the ones peddling the story. They sell incredibly expensive olive oil, soap, etc (items that can be bought cheaper elsewhere and just as good a quality). This is making them look like they were spurned and are bitter about it.
I am also waiting for my apricot jam. It’s been six weeks and I can be patient but if we don’t have this by mid-September I’m going to be upset.
I’m waiting as well but happy to wait. The email said we’ll get it when it’s restocked and it’s not restocked yet, so 🤷🏽♀️ we were refunded our money so it’s basically just a free gift at this point. I feel like the customer service has been exceptional, especially for a newly launched company.
That is exceptional customer service.
So basically, people are complaining about not getting free stuff fast enough. Hmm
I’m assuming you’ll get it (or whatever their seasonal jam is) with the next drop. She’s been doing seasonal drops so far, so I’ve been guessing around Sept 20/21st.
I’m sure Meghan is happy that the alleged partnership with the Flamingo Estate didn’t work. She seems to be doing ok on her own.
Wasn’t the story behind With Love, Meghan that the head of content at Netflix told her they should do a show around it after she got one of her jam jars? Wasn’t Meghan just planning to sell it at local farmers markets in Santa Barbara?
So I could see someone saying this could be an actual business for you Meghan, you could do a show and release this nationwide. Her saying, huh I hadn’t thought of that. Reaching out to a company that she knew was in that space, meeting with them, maybe they said no or maybe she said no to terms, and then saying, I could do this myself.
Because now after the sold out launches of the jams and the teas, the first sell out of the rosé and selling 10,000 bottles on the first day of the second vintage, it comes across at sour grapes for people that didn’t take the opportunity to do business with her.
Slight correction. Ten thousand bottles in the first TEN MINUTES of the second vintage.
They’re all kicking themselves.
Wasn’t the 10k of bottles for the first vintage? And then they sold some 3x the first vintage on day one of the second?
It was reported that they sold 10k of the second vintage in 10 minutes, they sold 50% more of the second vintage on day one than the total amount sold for the first vintage.
Numbers wise, they seemed to have around 30-50k bottles of the first vintage.
I bought 6 bottles of the first vintage. It ended up being two separate orders of 3 bottles. FedEx came and asked to see my driver’s license to input it into a machine. I asked him who controlled the information and was it safe. He didn’t know. I got my DL and walked back to my front door. It took less than a minute. But he left with my wine. I alerted As Ever. I had to pay $20 to ship it again.
When it finally got back to me, the tissue paper had been ripped off, all the bottles had broken seals and there was no card that said With Love, Meghan. There was no way I was drinking that wine. I took pictures and poured the wine down the drain. I wrote to As ever and they sent me 3 more bottles at no charge. They were very responsive and I was relieved.
The replacement bottles were perfect as was my 2nd order of three bottles.
I hope that everyone waiting for jam gets it very soon.
Whatever these fackers say, she has a global popularity (that many can only dream of) and everyone that turns her down is stupid. She will be wildly successful in the future. She just needs to continue to build her brand and believe in it. There will always be disappointments but if she continues, it will be successful. Jeff bezos didn’t become what he is today because he let haters get him down! Every successful player suffered fails but they didn’t become billionaires because they quit, continue the work! She has a massive advantage and will use it!
I don’t know why (well I do know why) people are acting like Meghan is so toxic and no one will want to work with her. Kim K got her start off the back of a sex tape and hate her or love her you can’t deny she and her mother spun it into success. But the classy biracial woman married to a Prince is just doomed to failure? FOH!
Meghan doesn’t need the endorsement or friendship of everyone. She has some very important friends who are very influential, billionaires, industry people, and ordinary folk who snatch up everything she is associated with. I read somewhere that the throw on one of her couches sold out all over the world, and something she wore sold out ALL OVER THE WORLD. Maybe that is the karma I was looking for. That may have been a quote from the head of Netflix. I remember when Gwyneth Paltrow suffered from and through horrible hate: consistent and long-lived. There was a gossip columnist at E! who called her Fishsticks who HATED her and didn’t let up. The best revenge is a well-lived life? I am still surprised though when someone dumps on her, and surprised to see who it is. I see some hate on YouTube on their shorts sometimes and comment “Hate campaign. Stop it.” You know, cause I am so influential. But what the hey, it makes me feel better. And I give it a thumbs down. There was a commercial with now ugly Brooke Shields hawking hair products, and I gave it a thumbs down. Howz Brooks book doing, by the way? I would love to see Meghan on Saturday Night Live with some outrageous, cheeky sketches. I have also wished she would write a roman à clef about Harry’s fam, and her time in England. A girl can wish.
This is one specific brand. Meghan is an active investor looking at various brands, some of which she has invested with.,It didn’t happen and Meghan has obviously moved on and found other partners. Meghan is the type of person who isn’t afraid to reach out to companies to explore partnerships. That’s also the whole ethos of Archewell. If she’s told no, she obviously takes it in stride and moves on.
It is difficult to get a brand going – for anyone, but she’s in the best position career, contacts and partner wise to get it running.
I don’t know, but Flamingo Estate’s website reminds me of stores my grandmother would shop at. Their whole website is just dull, even their packaging screams dated. But maybe that what they going for. Their website definitely don’t give off fun times vibes.
As Ever’s website looks airy, modern, welcoming, up to date. i.e, A place that promises fun times in the sun.
Maybe its best that any collab talks did not work out..