Well, Meghan Markle’s return to acting doesn’t seem to have lasted very long. It was only three days ago that we first heard news that her move back to the UK – along with Prince Harry and their children Lilibet and Archie – was spurred on by an offer to star in an as-yet-unknown TV project. Later the same day, it was reported that the role was in the third series of Guy Ritchie’s Netflix gangster series The Gentlemen. Now, it seems that any hopes of the Duchess returning to the small screen have already been dashed.
According to author of The Palace Papers, Tina Brown, Netflix has nipped any discussions with Meghan in the bud. “Newsflash: I have heard that Meghan Markle’s role in Guy Ritchie’s Netflix series The Gentleman is OFF,” she wrote on X. “The backlash in the UK was so intense, it became untenable to go forward,” Brown followed up in a Substack column. Now, to make matters even more complicated, The Sun has now reported that Netflix is still interested in casting Meghan in The Gentlemen (Netflix declined to comment). Are you keeping up?
If the claim is true, being dropped from Ritchie’s very successful (but not very good) series might seem like another blow for the Sussexes – a public humiliation hot on the heels of Harry losing his recent privacy case against the Daily Mail. But I would argue it’s a blessing in disguise. If the reaction to just the idea of her starring in a Netflix series courted so much negative attention – attention that, let’s not forget, Harry and Meghan claimed played a part in their leaving the country in the first place – then just imagine how unbearably brutal the scrutiny would be when the show comes out.
