Mindy Kaling defends Meghan Markle over Netflix backlash
Mindy Kaling has leapt to the defence of her friend Meghan Markle after the Duchess of Sussex experienced a backlash to the trailer for her upcoming Netflix lifestyle series With Love, Meghan.
On January 5th, Kaling attended the Golden Globes ceremony and was asked during a red-carpet interview about her involvement in the series, which has been labelled tone-deaf by many fans and critics.
The Never Have I Ever creator gushed that shooting the show was “probably one of the most glamorous moments of my life.” She revealed, “I was on maternity leave after having my third child last year when Meghan texted me and said, ‘Hey, do you want to come be in my show, and come out to Montecito, and have me cook for you?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, that sounds perfect.'”
The series, which mixes Markle’s candid conversations with her celebrity friends and handy tips and tricks for cooking, gardening, and entertaining, has been criticised from several angles. For some, a royal showcasing her luxurious lifestyle while also trying to come across as relatable is in poor taste, given current global conditions. Others have knocked the decision to film the series at a farmhouse close to Markle’s Montecito residence, as opposed to her actual home.
However, Kaling wouldn’t be drawn into any of these complaints. She claimed that Markle’s cooking skills are on point and joked, “Unsurprisingly, she kind of blew me out of the water.” She also said her recipes were accessible to the average person despite the show revealing that Markle has a full vegetable garden and chickens from which to obtain many of her ingredients. Kaling chuckled, “She has a garden from scratch, which I could never do, and chickens. They would all die if I tried to take care of chickens.”
Kaling also took the chance to shout out Meghan’s husband, the Duke of Sussex Prince Harry, revealing, “I heard he’s actually a pretty good cook. He knows his way around a kitchen.”
What did critics say about ‘With Love, Meghan’?
While Markle’s fans reacted positively to the announcement of With Love, Meghan and its trailer, many social media users pushed back against it. One X user wrote, “No one wants to watch an hour-long Instagram Trad Wife Clip starring Meghan Markle,” while another raged, “I just don’t get Meghan Markle, dude. She’s all like, ‘Oh no, the paparazzi are the worst; they totally invade my privacy,’ but then she goes and does a reality show about her fam and friends. Like, what’s up with that?”
Markle also came in for harsh criticism from The View’s Meghan McCain, who posted, “All of this, even in the trailer, is highly curated, produced, and out of touch. There have been two terror attacks in two days, major wars raging, and Americans can’t pay for groceries. We are a country in rage, uncertainty, and intensity right now. This concept is ill-advised. I would have told her to do a show helping bring fresh food to food deserts in low-income neighbourhoods. Do something to help people instead of your ego. This is why the world doesn’t like you, nothing else. Just completely and utterly tone-deaf to the moment.”