The second season of Meghan Markle’s “With Love, Meghan” premiered on Netflix Tuesday — and the negative UK reviews came pouring in.
The Guardian’s Lucy Mangan eviscerated the series as “so boring,” “so painfully contrived” and “so effortfully whimsical” that it “does become almost fascinating.”
The reviewer gave guest Chrissy Teigen a shoutout as the “high point” of the show and insisted the celebs making cameos weren’t “paid enough.”
The Times issued a similarly scathing take on Markle’s project, referring to the host as “a woman in need of some cash.”
Hilary Rose told the outlet the “baffling” series occupied “the sweet spot where irrelevant meets intolerable” and made her “rock back and forth in a darkened room.”
Meanwhile, Anita Singh from the Telegraph labeled “With Love, Meghan” as “tone-deaf” because the “episode about cocktail-making in Malibu is dedicated to the first responders and victims of the California wildfires.”
The reviewer, who called the “Montecito Marie Antoinette” a “needy” host did highlight the former actress “drop[ping] her Type-A perfection” and seeming “relatively normal” in some “self-deprecating” and “likeable” moments.
Critics across the pond said much of the same when Season 1 premiered in March, while being praised by American reviewers.
Markle, notably, tuned out the noise and celebrated the show making it into the streaming platform’s Top 10.
Later that same week, the series had already been renewed for another season, with Markle joking to her followers, “Lettuce romaine calm … or not (!) I’m so thrilled.”
“With Love, Meghan” was part of Markle and husband Prince Harry‘s $100 million Netflix deal in 2020.
Page Six reported earlier this month that the couple recently extended their partnership — but for “much” less with an amount that is “no risk for Netflix but saves them both reputationally.”
Markle hit back at those hating on her show during an interview with Emily Chang on Monday, quipping, “I knew who I was trying to meet. If you know your audience, you know your demographic, they loved the show. My partners loved the show.
“That’s why they have a Season 2, and why we have more fun coming,” she continued. “Are they saying negative things and then going home and secretly making single skillet spaghetti? Possibly.”
The second season of “With Love, Meghan” began streaming on Netflix Tuesday.