Meghan Markle's latest cash grab has shown her true colours – she will never learn. The As Ever founder has been accused of hypocrisy after launching her brand. By Megan Bull PUBLISHED: 21:00, Thu, Jun 11, 2026
Meghan Markle has teamed up with influencer Olivia McDowell (Image: Getty). Since launching her lifestyle brand As Ever in April 2025, Meghan Markle has faced widespread backlash for the price points of her products. Cut to a year later, and her marketing approach is still as out of touch as her $64 (£47) candle.
Following Netflix's announcement that it would no longer serve as a financial backer for As Ever (due to the fact that the business had experienced "rapid growth" and could "stand on its own"), Meghan has teamed up with influencer Olivia McDowell. In a new reel shared with As Ever's followers, the content creator - who regularly posts about designer fashion, beauty, and prepping for the perfect dinner party - revealed her top tips for hosting this summer.
Cut to clips of Olivia garnishing hand-cut sandwiches with kitchen tweezers, lighting one of As Ever's $64 candles and preparing goodie bags stocked with the brand's $14 hibiscus tea.
Let's be real, on one hand, it's easy to see how this partnership came about. In some ways, it seems like an obvious and inevitable match given Olivia's embodiment of the same quiet luxury aesthetic and passion for artisanal home crafting. But on the other hand, this partnership reiterates that Meghan just isn't listening to the feedback that's already out there.
After recruiting Netflix and her A-list friends to endorse As Ever last year, the response was overwhelmingly clear - the brand felt unattainable, unrelatable and out of touch with reality.
Meghan is ignoring the fact that As Ever is widely considered to be overpriced and unattainable (Image: Getty). So, deciding to collaborate with an influencer who lives a decadent lifestyle in a New York City apartment, and admittedly flew to Paris to get a French bob (no shade to Olivia - it looks fab), it feels like Meghan is totally ignoring and unwilling to accommodate the average consumer.
Instead, it feels like she's more focused on scoring immediate sales through endorsement, rather than establishing a brand identity that actually resonates with most shoppers and stands the test of time. What makes it worse is that Meghan has been critical of this alienating business approach in the past.
In 2016, Meghan described the notion of selling $100 candles as 'obnoxious' (Image: Getty). "There are no $100 candles on my site - that's so obnoxious," she said of her blog, The Tig, in 2016. "I just want things on there that you can have. And I want people who understand that ethos. I've always crafted it [The Tig] as 'aspirational girl next door', like, you can aspire for it but totally attain it too."
A decade later, and Meghan's notion of the 'aspirational girl next door' feels miles away. The problem is that if she wants to give her business a chance of surviving long term, she's got to bring herself back down to earth and actually justify the prices she's charging for everyday items.
In response to As Ever's latest collaboration, many have shared their thoughts on X. "It appears that Meghan Markle is so devoid of ideas about how to sell As Ever that she's hired another influencer to basically repeat her same talking points for the brand. Yikes. If the talking points aren't working, you get new talking points, not hire someone else to repeat the same failing lines," tweeted one. "Nothing she does will start selling those overpriced fruit spreads and wickless candles," added a second. "Too late. She's already tarnished it by thinking she knew it all and didn't need help or professional advice," remarked a third.
Without a genuine USP for her products, Meghan's made the mistake of relying on celebrity endorsement and storytelling, and it's a tactic that tends to wear thin, disappearing into thin air like the vapours of her $256 candle collection.
