When the Duchess of Sussex lived in the UK, the British media was OBSESSED with pocket-watching her and screaming about how much her clothes and jewelry cost. They acted like Meghan was personally robbing British taxpayers all so she could drape herself in diamonds and gold. When really, as we know now, most of what we saw her wear in the UK was stuff she purchased herself, on her dime, long before she even met Harry. I’m sure she bought new pieces, obviously (no American woman has that many fruity hats in their closet), but overall, the message was “how dare a Black woman have nice things!!” What’s especially crazy is that even though the British media has been robbed of their justification – “she’s a working royal, we’re paying for her clothes” – they’re still pocket-watching her and they’re still raging about the cost of everything she wears. Like… y’all aren’t paying for it, why are you so upset? Which brings me to this new Daily Mail story, where they’re crying about the cost of her jewelry in her latest Instagram video, where she’s making pasta at home.
Meghan Markle opted for more than £237,000 worth of jewellery while whipping up a pasta dish on Tuesday. The Duchess of Sussex, who resides in Montecito, appeared to be in high spirits as she flaunted her opulent jewellery collection on her latest Instagram video.
Getting into the Italian spirit, she set the clip to Annette Funicello’s Mia Cara, Mia Amore and showed off her cooking prowess by dicing up the fruit along with garlic and basil all while being weighed down by her impressive stack of gold accessories. While most home chefs will remove their gems before getting stuck in, Meghan decided to cook up a storm in her diamonds, gold Cartier jewellery and her weighty engagement ring.
On one hand, the former senior royal – who wore a crisp white shirt to cook her Mediterranean dish – sported Princess Diana’s Cartier Tank Française watch, worth £17,800 ($24,020), which was gifted to her after she married Prince Harry. She stacked this on top of her 18-carat gold Cartier Love bracelet which retails for around £7,050 ($9,513). The bracelet’s screw motif symbolises eternal love, with a unique closure that locks around the wrist, representing lasting commitment.
Meghan was also seen wearing her £2,370 ($3,197) Jennifer Meyer mini bezel tennis bracelet, which is handcrafted from polished 18-carat yellow gold and was designed by Tobey Maguire’s ex-wife. Viewers may have clocked a sizeable jewel glistening on the former actress’ finger. This is her £120,000 ($161,922) engagement ring which Prince Harry used to propose to her in 2017, a year before they married.
He designed a bespoke engagement ring, featuring a cushion-cut diamond from Botswana, symbolising their first holiday together. The ring also included two smaller round diamonds from Princess Diana’s personal collection, ensuring his late mother’s presence in their journey.
Initially crafted by Cleave & Company, Queen Elizabeth’s trusted jeweller, the ring featured a simple gold band and was valued at around £120,000. However, less than two years later, Harry commissioned Lorraine Schwartz to resize and reset the ring with a new diamond band, which Meghan first wore at Trooping the Colour in 2019. Meghan stacked this on top of her £10,000 ($13,493) wedding band, which was crafted from Welsh gold and was gifted to her from the late Queen, as in keeping with royal tradition.Meghan was also seen donning her eternity ring, which retails for £80,000 ($107,947), and first caught the eye of royal watchers when she first wore it in 2019. Placed alongside her wedding band and engagement ring, the eternity ring holds deep personal meaning as it was a gift from Harry to mark their first wedding anniversary. Crafted with conflict-free diamonds, the ring features the birthstones of Meghan, Archie and Harry, subtly set on its underside: a green peridot, green emerald and blue sapphire.
All of the timelessly elegant pieces Meghan wore in the video to cook her Italian dish added up to an eye-watering £237,220 ($320,091).
This obsession amuses me at this point. The Mail managed to avoid writing “HOW DARE SHE” but it was the subtext, alongside a sort of bittersweet nostalgia for what could have been. They could have been shouting “how dare she” from the rooftops if only they hadn’t abused her to the point of exile. Anyway, it’s not like Meghan wore her jewelry this way especially for an IG video. She wears those pieces every day. She’s known for her ring stack and her bracelet stack, although she changes up her bracelet stack with some frequency. An alternate Daily Mail headline, in an alternate universe, could have been “California woman wears her own jewelry in her own kitchen.”
Duchess Meghan threw together a pasta dish with garlic & lemon preserves https://t.co/QfvHxuhKpP pic.twitter.com/QNadCk3Btc
— celebitchy (@celebitchy) August 20, 2025
Photos courtesy of Meghan’s IG and As Ever’s IG.
Must cover for all the houses and vacations being taken on the taxpayers dime. Look here not there!!!
This article is about distraction and sabotage. It has nothing to do with her jewelry. They are trying to deflect from William and Kate’s opulent lifestyle, by highlighting how expensive Meghan’s jewelry pieces are
They’re also telling possible viewers of WLM2 that she is not relatable, because she wears expensive jewelry.
These people will NEVER stop trying to sabotage any, and everything Meghan does.
Harry and Meghan don’t receive one penny of “taxpayer money”, not from the US and not from the UK either. They travel on their own dime, not the revenues from the Duchy of Cornwall like some other under-employed frequent flyers we could name.
Meghan’s Blackness really bothers them. They find it jarring and completely unfair that she isn’t only gorgeous, industrious, popular, talented, and wealthy….but add the fact that she’s biracial and it really kicks ‘em where it hurts.
We are not allowed to live a soft life, wear expensive clothes and jewelry. If she wasn’t wearing her jewelry they would scream about that too. I know a lot of women that for them this is everyday wear. I cannot tell you the women I encounter at the salon wearing stacks of bracelets and rings on every finger. But yeah scream about jewelry she either paid for or was gifted.
this I think is one of the most insidious and heartbreaking ways that racism has been outed in the media and in western culture generally. the idea of “how did she/they afford that?” or “why does a black person have something more valuable than what I have?” white people have a lot to excavate in their own psyches. one of the things I’ve been actively doing to combat legacy media representation of black people is to watch/follow black women living gorgeous, expensive, soft lives without trauma and tropes. this shit runs deeeeeeeep and each white person has to do their own deprogramming but also we need to keep calling it out in the media. long may Meghan prosper.
I’m hardly a “flaunting” person, but I “learned this lesson” the hard way at work ages ago. Made the mistake of talking about a Maine sailboat cruise I took for vacay. (Nothing huge or expensive—a local long-operating firm with one sailboat that toured the coast.) You would think I bought a yacht or something the way co-workers carried on. 🙄🙄🙄🙄 Things at the office went downhill from there. Took me years to realize that racists will seize on any accomplishment or possession as a reason to slam WOC.
I mean I might carry on only bc the sailboat cruise sounds awesome and I’d want to hear about it. But not in a how dare you way, jeez. Good for you and wow what deeply unpleasant co-workers.
Good.
The kitchen tho!!!! If that’s her kitchen in the photos – I mean what a vibe!
OMG, I love Meghan’s kitchen 😍 I’ve saved every picture I’ve seen of it 😍
The UK press and palace courtiers are absolutely all sky high on their own supply, if they think The Ginger Avenger is going to return to Salty Island after the freedom, peace, and beauty of Montecito.
Their current kitchen looks bigger than his entire digs at Nott Cott!
Rota & courtiers, they’re just not into you 😂😂😂
Meghan is living her best life, Harry is living his best life with her, and it’s killing their haters. They know she was wealthy and successful pre-Harry, but the Rota constantly try to retcon that ‘inconvenient’ truth.
Which makes the rest of us want to emphasize that. Meghan had a higher net worth than Harry. Salary, investments. She bought him furniture. Royal Warehouses were not furnishing Nott Cott, which amounted to little more than a bedsit on Crown property.
Diana hoped for this sort of California life for herself post divorce. Mercifully, Harry achieved it, with her help, and Meghan’s and Tyler’s.
the fail online just don’t publish my comments anymore, which was much the same as “woman wears her own jewellery and where are Willy and Katie?”. I don’t even get the courtesy email of “we’re not publishing your comment cos blah” anymore 😂
They don’t publish mine either, they don’t like people who check facts. Such as the RF’s exemption from the race relations act.
Jane, you can always open a new account under a new name & post from it! It might take them a while to find your posts too snarky for them :)))
The bracelet stack is signature at this point. So this whole article is much ado about nothing. They need to focus on how much they’re paying their working royals, like the Wales, when they do next to nothing. And those same “working royals” play cutesy pr games like oh no, not us, we’re not draining the public purse. It’s evil black Meghan who should be pocket-watched, not us!!! They can GTFOH.
There are a LOT of women (especially in affluent areas) that do this exactly. Hell, I’m not in Meg’s category (not even close!), but I daily wear my dad’s gold watch (similar style to the Cartier, was my mom’s wedding gift to him), along with my tennis bracelet, and a gold bangle; on that same hand I have a multi-stone Roberto Coin band ring (hint: check Bloomingdales for their sales: btwn sale & “Friends and Family” I got this for almost 80% off!!). Other hand, my diamond eternity band, and multiple thin gold bracelets (white and yellow), some with tiny stones (precious/semi-precious, some with beaded gold…). I also layer my necklaces, that I *rarely* change out: a “white gold diamond by the yard” 18″, a beaded yellow gold 16″, and a diamond heart (given to me by my uncle), which has my mother’s engagement ring (in it’s original square platinum corners making it appear square) in the middle of the heart point). And let’s not get started on earrings! lolol
Of course, If I’m staying home, just hanging in sweats, I don’t put on rings or the watch, but the tennis bracelet rarely comes off, nor do the thin bracelets on the other arm, or my necklaces.
I guess what I’m trying to say is, we all have our own ideas of what/when we will wear our jewelery. And if Meg wants to wear hers when cooking a video for her promotion, hell to the yeah! She’s done other shots in her garden w/out her watch and tennis bracelet, and some with just her gold wedding band. But if Our Girl wants to wear a friggin’ TIARA to toss a salad, I’M AM HERE FOR IT! #BlingBabyBling !!
SO very middle class US.
My husband and I are both into nice watches, i have 2 Tags that i interchange (2k-3K) bought as gifts on vacations. i have an anniversary band i wear every day, plus a bunch of right hand rings that i swap out based on my inspiration. plus 2 layered diamond necklaces.
While i have a bunch of beautiful bracelets, i WFH on computer most days, and they bother me, so only on days out. even still my daily tally of jewelry is 9K. and i am not rich. i just have beautiful pieces that my husband has bought me over the last 30 years of marriage. 31 years today!
If i had Meghan’s jewelry i would be wearing the $H!t out of it!
Happy Anniversary Lisan!
I also have jewelry that I wear everyday regardless of if I’m at home or out and about. My wedding ring, band and engagement ring are always on my finger, even when I’m at home cooking. My stud earrings are always on as well as a watch that I often wear because habitually I check the time on my wrist more than I would check a clock on the wall are on my phone. None of what she’s wearing while cooking is strange or unusual. It seems as if the Fail is just desperate to distract from all that is happening with taxpayer funded Will and Kate by focusing on trivial things happening in Montecito where a still royal family lives while not being funded by taxpayers.
I agree. I wear my engagement ring, wedding ring and another ring along with my watch and a necklace everyday. My earrings change more often but I’m always wearing some. I don’t remove any jewelry for cooking unless I’m kneading dough. Then the rings would come off.
I remember a friend and neighbor commenting that I am the only woman she knows cleaning her house wearing diamonds.
Why the Daily Fail insists on putting a price on the Welsh gold wedding band is a mystery. They said themselves it was a gift from the Queen. Was Meghan supposed to leave it behind when they left?
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻, Louder for the people in the back!!!!
I wish I could cook that effortlessly … and be that effortlessly elegant.
I couldn’t wear white! Not a chance! Nor could I eat pasta while wearing white! I once splashed garlic butter sauce in my eye–and I had my glasses on! I also managed to get garlic butter sauce on my jeans in spite of having a giant restaurant napkin on my lap. 🤨
I sure do miss the days when they were crying about Meghan not wearing her engagement ring.
Do they cry when Kate doesn’t wear her’s.
Of course they don’t because they are racist hypocrites.
Meanwhile, back on Salty Island, the serfs will go hungry this winter while the firstborn son of the King moves into his, checks notes, fifth(?) mansion.
Also, £237,000 worth of jewellery is still a lot less than Billy Idle’s “wage” breakdown per appearance last year (71) at almost £340k per app.
Less than the cost of ONE WEEK’S RENTAL of the Super Yacht he and Mother Nature were just one, too!
Rich lady wears expensive accessories. The horror.
This level of racism must be exhausting for all concerned even if I have zero sympathy for the perpetrators.
Exactly.
They act like every time they see her she JUST spent that much all over again for whatever she’s wearing. Most of those items listed weren’t even purchases; they were gifts.
The real hate is that Harry told the entire royal institution to kiss his ass and picked his (bi-racial) wife and the family/life they were creating together.
The fail and other detractors NEVER would have thought that could happen. Especially after how poorly the royals generally seem to treat people (each other included). Eating shit is just par for the (royal) course.
As SOON as I saw my girl making her pasta dish I knew those fools would be up in arms over it.
We all did right?
I wear on the daily: a gold knot bangle and a gold bangle (in the style of the Cartier love bracelet) on my other write I wear a silver beaded Tiffany bracelet, a smaller gold beaded bracelet and a novelty bracelet with a penny centered. I also wear a gold dome ring. I also love to cook — what I don’t do it is REMOVE all of my jewelry BEFORE cooking.
These people are so jealous and ridiculous and hate that the fashionable, beautiful princess left them high and dry. Deal with it you racists. You’re left with the boring, lazy princess who thinks the high of fashion is their late mother in law’s engagement ring.
On the daily I wear a med-alert bracelet, a silver Pandora bracelet my father gave me (and I still am adding/switching out charms lol), a watch, an Oura ring, a claddagh ring, and some rubber awareness bracelets (neurodiversity, bladder cancer, Alzheimers). I wear a necklace that contains an autism heart my BFF got me 15 years ago, and a tear drop pendant that contains my father’s ashes on a stainless steel chain (I will be adding a pendant memoralizing my cat Spike sooner than I would like I fear)
The point is, it’s all MY jewelry and I will wear it whenever I want! Like Meghan’s jewelry is all HERS and it has meaning to her. Why would she remove the jewelry to chop some stuff and stir it until it becomes sauce? She’s damned if she does, damned if she doesn’t so I’m glad she does what she wants!
(I do wear gloves when I’m making meatballs, or kneading dough etc. but I still don’t take anything off)
Black woman in the US wears her own nice jewelry in her own awesome kitchen in her own house wearing her own clothes. Oh no, the horror!
Question? How do they know which of the Cartier watches she’s wearing? IIRC she has 2 right? The one she purchased before meeting Harry, and the Princess Diana one given to her by Harry. LAWD HAVE MERCY! with these people already. The jealousy and resentment dripping from this article is off the charts and beyond!! YIKES!!!!
At least her jewelry doesn’t come from a whole azzed vault of stolen and blood collection.
This is why we can’t have nice things!
Or can we……;)
A plain gold wedding band does not cost 10,000 pounds. Especially when the gold is a gift. No one paid for that gold.
But her band is made of special, rare gold, which has historical significance and a very, very finite quantity. Her wedding band is probably worth more, actually.
I love that for her. She and her children are living history and they can’t change that no matter how much they want to.
Always Loved her jewelry game.
.
My mother never took off her wedding set. EVER! Neither does my sister and many of my friends. Why is Meghan any different? I can’t qwite put my finger on it.
So wealthy woman wears a watch, two bracelets and her wedding bands. News at 11.
I don’t know why the media is in a rage over jewelry worn for years. Even if they were brand new why does it matter. I just can’t over how at the same time they say Meghan and Harry are irrelevant yet cover them more than anyone in the Royal family.
Mad when she wears her jewelry, mad when she doesn’t wear her jewelry. Why do they always frame how much the jewelry cost as if she pays for that each time she wears it? Do you include the total cost of your car and your grocery trips, or your family vacations?
I mean we know the real reason they’re so upset is that they don’t think that she deserves to have nice things, but it’s still weird to be this upset that someone is spending money that they earned on things for themselves.
They really can’t handle her crisp white shirts either. Can’t cook a meal without spilling all over yourself? Sounds like a skill issue 💅
I’ll be honest, I always wonder why people don’t remove their hand jewelry to cook but I feel that way about *everyone* who doesn’t and loads of people don’t lol. This is not a strange thing that Meghan alone does and this article is ridiculous.
I prefer that, too.
I usually take off all of my wrist jewelry, except for my tennis bracelet, if I’m doing some serious cooking. My rings don’t come off often, but I can take them off if I want to.
If I don’t have time to take off my jewelry before cooking I will just wear gloves.
I will take my rings off when i am mixing something with my hands, but otherwise, my wedding rings and others stay on.
Heh. I came close to losing my college ring, so I put it on a necklace. I don’t wear jewelry when I cook, because I’m very task-oriented…and that is asking for something weird to happen. 😉
Just a thought but, I wonder if this has been put out there to “trigger” William. He’s already thrown a tantrum about the “missing” engagement ring made from his mother’s stones. Now seeing Meghan wearing both the engagement ring AND his mother’s watch whilst cooking might cause him to start making noises about not looking after her jewellery “properly.” I can almost hear him ordering Jason Knife to demand Meghan returns Diana’s jewellery back to the UK! 😆
The rings my husband gave me will have to be pried off my cold dead hands.
I like that commenters are posting what their daily jewelry is. Let’s normalize this. Maybe somebody could make a tik tok or reel in which people share what their daily jewelry is.
Mine is a Cartier knock off watch, a gold & ruby tennis bracelet, a tiny ruby pinky ring (my birthstone) and my wedding set- left hand & left wrist.
Silver bangle, abalone & silver clasp bracelet, some friendship bracelets my kiddos made for me, and a diamond eternity band that my late MIL handed down to me. – right hand and right wrist.
Earrings change all of the time. My ears are double pierced and my left ear has two cartilage piercings. I usually always wear a little ruby stud in the higher, small one.
I don’t do jewellery, so just my wedding ring, had to have it cut off once after injuring my hand.
I wear cz studs when I’m not working (have to wear a headset for phone work so not during the week). Currently wear no other jewelry. I own a stainless steel Timex that broke back in 2019 and I haven’t replaced it because I always have my phone. If I ever get a job in an office, I’ll have to replace it and start wearing earrings.
Meghan has exquisite taste.
All I wanted to know is what was the name of the manufacturer of the pan she was cooking that pasta dish in. I know it has a hexclad nonstick pattern on the inside but who is the manufacturer 🤔 It’s gorgeous 🤩
Ourplace
Titanium always pro pan
I think…
Sorry, the miniTitanium always pro pan apparently. From ourplace
Lol I have to say this read less as HOW DARE SHE and more as a listing of all the sweet sentimental jewelry Meghan’s husband has given her over the years. They even listed times he upgraded her jewelry to celebrate their anniversaries. This article actually makes Harry look really good and Meghan like a cherished beloved wife.
No wonder before the Sussexes stepped down I vaguely recall the British press screaming about how Meghan wasn’t allowed to modify her jewelry since its a part of the “historic record”. Clearly Kitty was seething with jealousy.
And we have seen endless accounts of cheap Willy, and Kate buying herself her jewels.
Wait, they said she couldn’t change anything because of the ‘historical record’? So they completely ignored the fact that The Queen changed various pieces over the years? As did many of her predecessors? 🙄
Shouldn’t a princess of the realm have an expensive engagement and wedding ring /s. These people are filthy rich. Kate has an expensive ring and wears it in all kinds of situations.
Yeah, I don’t recall the Fail writing a whole article about Kate wearing her wedding ring and band to go scuba diving.
Ok this is fun. I too am in my soft girl era, and I have the nerve to also be Black. I am nowhere near Meghan’s level of wealth (yet lol positivity Celebitches) but I love all of Meghan’s jewelry because it is so understated and beautiful. Cartier has always been my favourite jewelry designer and I remember being excited to see Meghan wears Cartier.
I have a Cartier diamond necklace that I love. It’s shaped like a heart. I snatched it up on consignment and it was my divorce present to myself. I don’t wear it every day but I wear it often. I used to wear a Cartier diamond band on my ring finger as something of a d**k repellant, but I don’t anymore now that I’m back in Canada and I’m getting older and cat-called less (yay). I have small pair understated Cartier diamond earrings. I wear those a lot too. When I am going out, I will wear my Loree Rodkin chandelier earrings with black diamonds. They’re lovely! I get a lot of compliments on those.
I really need some gold jewelry though and some bangles. I have my eye on a gold bangle made by Bvlgari. I’d also love to find a nice pair of gold hoop earrings. I have never been a much of a watch person but that may be changing as I do have the Cartier baignoire watch on my wish list.
I think every time the BM report on the cost of Meghan’s things, we should comment like this – (for example – I too have a Brunello Cucinelli sweater that I love and I’m Black!) Let their colonizer heads explode at the thought that there are a ton of Black women who purchase nice things with their own money and know they are deserving of those nice things. Lol cry harder!
I’m going to guess that this article had affiliate links. This could be the only logical reason for the DM to write this non-story.
Always interesting to see what jewelry Meghan chooses to wear with her outfits. I’ve read that Meghan wore her own jewelry on Suits, so can’t imagine she wouldn’t do the same on WLM. We get a nice look at her jewelry because she wears each piece often. She also seems to stick to yellow gold and diamonds. We don’t know exactly the terms of Diana’s will regarding her personal jewelry beyond the wish that William and Harry’s wives would eventually wear it. It seems to me that Meghan got some prime pieces that had great personal meaning to Diana such as her Cartier watch, apparently a gift from her father, her aquamarine ring, apparently a gift from a friend, and diamond tennis bracelets. Meghan also got some whimsical pieces, like the butterfly earrings. It seems Kate got the sapphire and diamond suites to match her ring of course. I remember Diana wore a lot of pearls and we don’t know which came from the royal collection and which were her own, but Kate seems to wear them. Come to think of it, have ever seen Meghan wear pearls? I think pearls are Lili’s birth month gem. It would be interesting to see if Meghan ever wears a pearl item. I believe she has worn her children’s birth signs in gold. Interesting too, that Harry’s September stone is the sapphire, but that can come in many colours, not just blue. Anyway, Meghan obviously prefers gold and diamonds, and relatively dainty jewelry. Love her diamond necklaces. She never had a chance to wear the huge and ostentatious pieces in the royal collection, but she’s made a different kind of jewelry her signature.
Most of the royal jewellery is too heavy and over decorated. It’s showing off wealth stuff that lacks elegance.
I love the way Meg wears her jewelry. It’s my favorite part of her style. I don’t have a good real jewelry collection yet, but I’ve been stacking costume, wood, leather, jade etc since my early twenties.
OK, DM, do Kate next! 🙄. And I really, really hate their writing style. They have a limited vocabulary–evidenced by their overuse of certain words–and pretty much always misuse those few words. Meghan wasn’t ‘flaunting’ anything, she was simply wearing her customary jewelry, as people do. Lots of people never take off their jewelry, wearing it 24/7. And she wasn’t ‘seen donning’ her ring–she already had it on!!! I’m surprised they didn’t mention her ‘slim pins’ and ‘luxurious locks’, too.
@2131jan, if you don’t mind I am going to borrow and start using your moniker for Kate: Mother Nature. I actually don’t stack things, but I am eagle-eyed when it comes to jewelry, because I design and make jewelry, so I noticed how cool Meghan looks with her stacked jewelry (and not overdone) and I was thinking of trying that out myself. I notice Meghan doesn’t cuss (on camera), I have heard her say, oh sugar! So I can’t imagine her making a rude gesture, but her tooling around in her kitchen, her cooking show, her garden, selling her products and selling out withing minutes, is a great (rude gesture) to the British press. Just going about my lovely home, having friends over, making millions. F-you Britain.
So, she’s wearing jewelry that she’s had for years. Okay.
Sigh…
Also, I wear my gold rings and gold stacked bracelets when I cook. I only take them off when I’m squishing dough or something similar in my hands….
I read through this nearly to the end and was greatly impressed that they managed not to use the phrase “eye watering” then boom. There it was in the last sentence.
Let’s be for real about the value of Diana’s watch. It’s obviously worth so much more since it belonged to her! Guess they didn’t want to go there
They are trying to make her as unrelatable as possible … unlike Kate with whom every British mum can relate 🤭🤭🤭