Meghan Markle’s ambition to be the Windsor family’s Melinda Gates faced stumbling blocks of her own making, according to royal authors Tina Brown and Valentine Low. Brown, in The Palace Papers, says the late Queen Elizabeth II personally granted Meghan two high-profile roles—the patronage of the National Theatre and the vice presidency of the Queen’s Commonwealth Trust—signals that the couple would have a prominent platform to steer outreach and cultural diplomacy within the Commonwealth.
For 45 years the National Theatre had the Queen as its patron, Brown notes, and the monarch’s decision to pass the baton to Meghan was seen as a gesture to elevate the Duchess’s global profile. Brown adds that Meghan’s appointment to the Queen’s Commonwealth Trust came with a remit to support young people, especially women and girls, a mission the couple could brand with fresh energy. It was framed as a sign that the Sussexes would have their own territory to champion a cause long valued by the Queen’s sovereign power.
Brown argues that Meghan was genuinely pleased with the assignments and began shaping the organisations in her image. The author writes that the Commonwealth’s image was in need of modernization, and Meghan, with Harry at her side, could lend star power to bring its mission of collaboration and outreach to a broader audience. But Brown cautions that modernizing the Commonwealth’s brand would require time, tact and, crucially, money. She portrays the funds problem as a central obstacle: without financial independence, the couple’s global ambitions risked stalling in a framework of limited resources, with the two sharing office space with the Cambridges as junior partners in an underfunded operation.
Brown emphasizes the practical hurdle: Meghan faced the unpalatable fact that she remained financially dependent on a husband who was, in her view, still tethered to royal finance and protocol. She notes that Meghan wanted a paid role within the Palace structure, something that did not materialize in a way that could satisfy her ambitions. There was precedent for royal salaries being directed to charitable work—William, for instance, had worked as an air ambulance pilot and donated that salary to charity—but a matching official post for Meghan was not found. By January 2020, the couple announced they were stepping down as working royals, a pivot Brown says was shaped in part by the financial calculus surrounding their future.
Valentine Low, in Courtiers, also identifies money as a decisive factor. He describes early discussions about a middle ground that would have allowed Meghan and Harry to pursue independent earnings while maintaining some royal duties. The discussions reportedly circulated a spectrum of possibilities—from a limited amount of time for private work to a broader arrangement—yet any agreement would have required adherence to the normal rules of royal behavior, including not acting or making decisions to gain financially. Low notes that the perception among some was that Meghan wanted to earn money, and that the only viable path to do so might involve leaving royal life behind and returning to the United States.
With the royal framework shaping a ceiling on financial independence, Meghan and Harry completed their departure in 2020, a moment that shifted the narrative from constitutional duties to personal entrepreneurship. Since then, Meghan has sought to build a portfolio outside the royal orbit, launching and steering ventures that blend lifestyle, media, and business. In March 2024, she soft-launched American Riviera Orchard, later renamed As Ever, signaling a formal pivot into commerce that she described as an extension of her “love language”—food, gardening, entertaining and thoughtful living. The product lineup has included teas, edible flower sprinkles and a premium jar of honey, with Meghan telling listeners of her Confessions Of A Female Founder podcast that she paused restocking after products routinely sold out in under an hour.
Meghan has also expanded her investment footprint, backing ventures such as vegan coffee brand Clevr Blends, haircare line Highbrow Hippie and asset manager Ethic, which focuses on sustainable investments. Harry and Meghan signed a high-profile deal with Netflix in 2020 valued at about £18 million, though the couple produced only a single show hosted by Meghan—Archetypes, which featured conversations with Serena Williams, Paris Hilton and others—and the project was described as ending mutually in June 2023 amid industry speculation that content production did not meet expectations for payout.
The couple has continued to pursue media ventures, including Meghan’s Confessions Of A Female Founder podcast and a 2021 children’s book, The Bench, which received mixed reviews. In film and television, the Sussexes released Harry & Meghan in 2022, a Netflix project that set Netflix’s record for the biggest debut for a documentary but drew mixed responses. They also served as executive producers on a polo-focused documentary series and appeared together in Heart Of Invictus, a 2023 title that did not feature Meghan as an executive producer. A separate Netflix deal described as multi-year has reportedly carried a lower value than the initial arrangement.
As Meghan charts a post-royal path that blends media and entrepreneurship, observers say the wider culture and entertainment landscape remains attentive to how she translates sustained visibility into lasting financial independence. The arc—from a royally sanctioned platform to an independent brand investor—continues to unfold amid ongoing public interest in how the House of Windsor engages with popular culture and global philanthropy.