Meghan Markle Slammed for Her Bad Business Ideas by Royal Expert Tina Brown: 'She Doesn't Listen'

Meghan Markle has been promoting American Riviera Orchard since March, but royal expert Tina Brown thinks the business' failure to hit retailers is a reflection of the Duchess of Sussex's professionalism.

“She’s a perfectionist about getting it all wrong. Her issue is that she doesn’t listen," Brown wrote on her new Substack, Fresh H---. "She has all these people, asks them their opinion, and then doesn’t follow it. She does what she wants to do. And all of her ideas are total c---, unfortunately.”

Brown later speculated that Prince Harry is “so naïve and really unschooled in the ways of the world. Being Prince Harry means that I doubt if he ever booked a table in a restaurant. The army was great for him, and he was extremely good and competent in there. That really helped turn him into a real person.”

The Sussexes had a rough year in Hollywood after Spotify decided to part ways with Archewell Audio in 2023, and Brown hinted at Harry being taken aback by their professional woes.

“He’s the lamb to the slaughter in this situation,” Brown said. “He was terribly impressed by Meghan. He thought that she knew all, she persuaded him that she was the savvy Hollywood wheeler-dealer who could come in and make them stars and all the rest of it. And he just sort of blindly followed her like a child, really.”

After Harry's weeks of solo travel, rumors began to swirl that the couple is separating professionally to repair their image.

“Unfortunately, she made every mistake in the book, and she’s kind of run out of road. I don’t know where Meghan goes," Brown added. "Harry could still, as I say, make a comeback. He’ll always be Prince Harry. He’ll always be the grandson of the Queen and the son of Diana.”

OK! previously reported Meghan's American Riviera Orchard launch date could have been pushed back due to her upcoming Netflix cooking series.

“From a strategic and branding perspective, if you suggest you are going to launch something but then four months later nothing has happened, the world moves on," branding expert Norah Lawlor said.

"Fortunately for them, there has been so much going on in the world in the last four months that they could probably relaunch it and no one would really notice," Lawlor added. "The bigger question is whether they have a real team on it, and whether that team has been able to negotiate the retail channel partnerships to get this into stores."

In July, Meghan attended the G9 Summit in New York alongside IT Cosmetics co-founder Jamie Kern Lim, which might have been a good opportunity to network with other people in the industry.

“Meghan was in the Hamptons recently at a women in business summit; you have to wonder whether she was actually getting business advice, or if she was more concerned with projecting an image of a smart and savvy businesswoman. American Riviera Orchard poses similar questions: Is it really going to be a business, or is it an image-driven add on, designed primarily just to project an image of a serious businesswoman?" Lawlor asked.