Meghan Markle has suffered yet more critical reviews of her podcast, condemning it for giving ‘vapid lessons in self-love’ and being an ‘ego-fluffing conversation’.
Confessions of a Female Founder was given just one star in The Times after its columnist James Marriott was ‘seized by an urge to beat my head against the wall’.
The Irish Times reviewer Laura Slattery condemned the ‘mutual love-in’ of a ‘multimillionaire and a duchess who want credit for daring to love themselves’.
And Natalie Oliveri, royal reporter for n women’s network 9Honey, joked there were ‘certain prerequisites it seems the Duchess must have before booking a guest – they need to be friends and the guest should praise Meghan where possible’.
It comes after the Telegraph, Standard and Guardian all gave the Lemonada Media show two stars amid other withering write-ups in the Express and i Paper, which saw the podcast branded an ‘inane stream of mindless aphorisms’ and ‘stomach-turning’.
One key criticism was that listeners might have hoped to hear much ‘wisdom’ from Meghan’s guest, Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd – but ‘we get none of it’, because the former actress ‘steers conversations towards her own experiences’.
The show has also now entered the Apple podcast charts, coming in at number six in both the US and Canada, 11th in the UK, 22nd in Ireland and 57th in .
The Duchess of Sussex revealed in the podcast that she had a ‘huge medical scare’ after giving birth, having announced the arrival of the new Lemonada Media show by posting a series of throwback photos on Instagram of her selling cookies as a child.
Both women discussed how they had suffered from postpartum preeclampsia, a condition related to high blood pressure and excess protein in urine in the days or weeks after giving birth – which Wolfe Herd described as ‘life or death, truly’.
But the Times gave it a one-star review under the headline: ‘Meghan’s vapid lessons in self-love’, adding: ‘Receiving business advice from a Californian multimillionaire who owes her fortune to marrying a prince is as illuminating as you would expect.’
Mr Marriott wrote: ‘Predictably, she has nothing to say about real business issues such as logistics, management techniques or supply chain issues.
‘Equally predictably, there is lots of guff about how to love yourself and spread positive energy through the world. I suspect that this is not the sort of thing most small business people spend much time fretting over.
‘But then Meghan’s business isn’t really a business. It’s a bit like the corporate equivalent of Marie Antoinette’s dairy farm – a pleasant game of make-believe for an idle rich woman.’
He also poked fun at Wolfe Herd’s declaration that she had been on a ‘journey of self-love and self-discovery’, which resulted in her decision that ‘I’m going to foundationally re-architect the way people date and the way people love’.
Mr Marriott wrote: ‘By this point I was seized by an urge to beat my head against the wall and foundationally re-architect my skull.’
The Irish Times was no less critical, saying that the podcast was an ‘ego-fluffing conversation underlining the culture gap between Ireland and the US’.
Reviewer Ms Slattery said Confessions of a Female Founder ‘doesn’t feature any ear-pricking insights’ and ‘isn’t about any specific business-world struggles that anyone who wishes to emulate Wolfe Herd’s success could either relate to or learn from’.
She also mocked Wolfe Herd for saying in the podcast that her ‘jaw hit the floor’ when she saw Meghan was ‘the cover of every single magazine and newspaper’ at an airport in Ireland years ago.
Ms Slattery added: ‘Their treacly, ego-fluffing conversation – combined with Wolfe Herd’s reminder that royal gossip does a decent trade here too – only serves to underline how the culture gap between Ireland and the US remains as wide as the Atlantic.
TELEGRAPH: ‘Meghan’s podcast is an inane stream of mindless aphorisms’
Chris Bennion
‘There are no confessions or secrets – at one mystifying point Meghan says to her guest, ‘You don’t have to reveal all the secrets’ – but there are plenty of self-care aphorisms, journeys of self-love and validation, discussions of bottling your essence, and great handfuls of mutual adoration.’
TIMES: ‘Meghan’s vapid lessons in self-love’
James Marriott
Meghan takes up a remarkable amount of airtime on the podcast, given that she sells jam as a hobby and her guest is the billionaire founder of a global technology company.
GUARDIAN: ‘Meghan’s sycophantic interview podcast is stomach-turning’
Rachel Aroesti
‘Confessions of a Female Founder is far from a gladiatorial grilling and it’s hardly a manual of specific, constructive business advice; it’s simply an effusive chinwag between two like-minded pals that may as well have taken place behind a deluxe set of closed doors.’
THE I PAPER: ‘Essence’, ‘energy’ and ego: Meghan’s new podcast is 45 minutes of platitudes’
Sarah Carson
‘A podcast as light as those styrofoam peanuts that only really concerns itself with surface aesthetics – the packaging – and offers little of substance.’
STANDARD: ‘Welcome to girlboss 2.0’
India Block
‘She’s a generous and competent interviewer, playing up her anxieties and being the right amount of complementary and deferential to keep her guest relaxed and talking.’
EXPRESS: ‘I listened to Meghan Markle’s new podcast and its success will be down to one thing’
Hanisha Sethi
‘It is also clear how Meghan Markle wants to draw wider interest in her brand ‘As Ever’ to her listeners and podcast guests. She often steers conversations towards her own experiences, regardless of the original topic. While this may stem from a desire to connect or relate, it can also overshadow others’ contributions.’
TIMES: ‘Tuning in for Meghan’s new podcast – if only I’d had rosé’
Charlie Gowans-Eglinton
‘I have been listening for 8 minutes and 48 seconds before Whitney (I will call her Whitney, since we are doing ‘girl talk’) speaks about business for — I timed it — 17 seconds before Meghan chimes in again.’
‘It seems unlikely to be closed by a multimillionaire and a duchess who want credit for daring to love themselves.’
In , 9Honey’s Ms Oliveri said she was ‘falsely drawn into the latest offering from the Duchess of Sussex: the first episode of Confessions Of A Female Founder didn’t actually contain any revelatory information’.
She described it instead as a ‘love-in’ between Meghan and Wolfe Herd, pointed out that the promise from Meghan that the podcast would have ‘the kind of advice that turns small ideas into billion-dollar businesses’ was not fulfilled.
Ms Oliveri added that there are ‘certain prerequisites it seems the Duchess must have before booking a guest: they need to be friends and the guest should praise Meghan where possible’.
She cited Wolfe Herd describing Meghan and Harry as an ‘elegant, iconic, classy couple’, with Meghan then calling Wolfe Herd ‘the kind of friend who always seems to know exactly what to say’.
The latest reviews come after Telegraph TV critic Chris Bennion yesterday described the show as having an ‘inane stream of mindless aphorisms’ with ‘no confessions or secrets’.
He said there are ‘plenty of self-care aphorisms, journeys of self-love and validation, discussions of bottling your essence, and great handfuls of mutual adoration.’
Mr Bennion added: ‘The frustrating thing is that Wolfe Herd, who is just 35, presumably does have wisdom to impart, having been part of the team that created Tinder before she created Bumble.
‘Imagine the drive, the talent, the decisions and sheer bloody ruthlessness it must take to achieve what she has. We get none of it.
‘In this perfumed echo chamber, the best we get is a sense that Wolfe Herd didn’t love school and that she wishes she hadn’t worked so hard.’
In the Guardian, pop culture writer Rachel Aroesti said the ‘sycophantic interview podcast is stomach-turning’.
She said that whenever her guest opened up about her life, ‘Meghan very rarely reciprocates’, adding: ‘You can understand why she’s guarded – but the problem is that personal disclosure fuels parasocial relationships, which are podcasting’s primary draw.’
Ms Aroesti also wrote: ‘It’s hardly a manual of specific, constructive business advice; it’s simply an effusive chinwag between two like-minded pals that may as well have taken place behind a deluxe set of closed doors.’
Another two-star review came from the Standard, in which India Block said Wolfe Herd ‘gentle parents’ Meghan – and that the Duchess had been ‘frozen in time’ since shutting her lifestyle blog The Tig in 2017 before announcing her engagement to Prince Harry.
But Ms Block also said the Duchess is a ‘generous and competent interviewer, playing up her anxieties and being the right amount of complementary and deferential to keep her guest relaxed and talking’.
In the Express, royal reporter Hanisha Sethi said she wanted Wolfe Herd to ‘share more learning curves about her journey rather than lunches with Meghan and bottles of rosé’.
She wrote: ‘Meghan takes control of the narrative early on in the episode. She bluntly directs the podcast by informing her friend of how she wants the conversation to be ‘relaxed and easy’ – which is normally a chat you would have with a guest behind-the-scenes instead of on-air for broadcast.’
Ms Sethi also said Meghan ‘often steers conversations towards her own experiences, regardless of the original topic’, adding: ‘While this may stem from a desire to connect or relate, it can also overshadow others’ contributions.’
In The Times, reviewer Charlie Gowans-Eglinton said Meghan could have asked Wolfe Herd ‘how she made a billion, but she had other things on her mind’.
She wrote that she had been ready to ‘jot down the wisdom that will doubtless awaken the entrepreneur within and make me my first million’.
But she added: ‘I have been listening for eight minutes and 48 seconds before Whitney (I will call her Whitney, since we are doing ‘girl talk’) speaks about business for – I timed it – 17 seconds before Meghan chimes in again.’
A further review in The i Paper by chief culture writer Sarah Carson described the podcast as ’45 minutes of platitudes’.
She said the Duchess’s comment about packaging keeping her up at night was likely ‘intended as relatable and approachable and a reflection of how easy and detrimental it is to become absorbed with small details at the cost of losing sight of the bigger picture’.
But Ms Carson said this ‘instead sets the tone for a podcast as light as those styrofoam peanuts that only really concerns itself with surface aesthetics – the packaging – and offers little of substance’.
The podcast was released just hours after Prince Harry landed in the UK, and King Charles III jetted off to Italy with Queen Camilla for a four-day state visit.
The Duke of Sussex then arrived at the High Court yesterday for an appeal against a ruling on whether he is entitled to armed bodyguards paid for by the taxpayer.
In the podcast interview recorded in February, Meghan said to Wolfe Herd: ‘We both had very similar experiences – though we didn’t know each other at the time – with postpartum, and we both had preeclampsia. Postpartum preeclampsia.’
Meghan did not reveal whether she suffered the condition after the birth of her son Prince Archie, five, or her daughter Princess Lilibet, three. Wolfe Herd has two sons.
The Duchess added: ‘It’s so rare and so scary. And you’re still trying to juggle all of these things, and the world doesn’t know what’s happening quietly.
‘And in the quiet, you’re still trying to show up for people – mostly for your children – but those things are huge medical scares.’ Wolfe Herd added: ‘I mean life or death, truly.’
Wolfe Herd spoke about Meghan and Harry introducing their newborn son Archie to the world in a photocall at St George’s Hall in Windsor Castle in May 2019, two days after his birth.
Postpartum preeclampsia is a potentially-deadly condition that new mothers can suffer when they have high blood pressure and excess protein in their urine after childbirth.
It is different to preeclampsia, which is a similar condition that develops during pregnancy and normally resolves with the baby’s birth.
Postpartum preeclampsia normally develops within 48 hours of childbirth, but it can sometimes be up to six weeks or later – which is then known as ‘late postpartum preeclampsia’.
If the condition is untreated, it can cause seizures and other serious complications such as organ damage, a stroke or even death.
Signs and symptoms might include high blood pressure, excess protein in urine, severe headaches, changes in vision or pain in your upper belly, usually under the ribs on the right side.
Other symptoms might be nausea and vomiting, shortness of breath and decreased urination.
She told the Duchess: ‘I mean, I’ll never forget the image of you after you delivered Archie, and the whole world was waiting for his debut.
‘I was either just becoming or about to become a new mom, and I was like, ‘Oh my God, how is this woman doing this? How is this woman putting on heels and going and debuting a child in this, you know, beautiful outfit in front of the entire world?’
Wolfe Herd added: ‘I could barely face a doorbell delivery for takeout food in a robe’ – to which Meghan laughed.
Meghan also called Wolfe Herd a ‘wildly successful female entrepreneur’ and ‘the kind of friend who just always seems to know the exact right thing to say when I need perspective’.
Wolfe Herd spoke about Meghan’s ‘brutalising’ time in the public eye, telling her: ‘I do think there is so much to be said for your ability to exist, even in the presence of that.
‘It takes a very strong cookie. When I was going through the media storm and being called this and that, and this and that, at Tinder, I didn’t leave my house for, like, a month and a half.’
Meghan told Wolfe Herd about being ‘absolutely consumed with packaging’, adding: ‘Boxes. It’s all I could think about. I would sit there doing the unboxing in my head: Is there tissue paper?
‘What about the packing peanuts, but they’re biodegradable? Where does the sticker go, and what size the box is going to be?’
She also made reference to a ‘porch pirate’ – a term for someone who steals packages left on porches or doorsteps after delivery.
Meghan said: ‘Someone says, ‘But you don’t want to brand the outside of the box, because of porch pirates. Had never heard that before. What’s a porch pirate?’
Wolfe Herd also said that the ‘one thing you can never get back is time’.
She told the Duchess: ‘The amount of time, Meg, that I wasted on being stressed, being miserable, being overwhelmed, being paranoid about what shoe was going to drop. I actually think I would have been more successful had I not been like that.’
However, Meghan replied, ‘But can you turn it off? I say this because last night, I was – you know when your brain goes in a loop? Those 3am loops, and you can’t stop overthinking the thing.’
Wolfe Herd explained how she has followed the ‘rule of fives.’
She said: ‘Will this matter in five minutes? Five hours? Five days? Yes or no. If it’s not going to matter in five years, throw it out the window.’
And Wolfe Herd told her: ‘I think you have to really take a deep breath and say, ‘You know what, how big of a deal is this? If this is not going to be a defining issue in your business, your life, your family in five years, like, you’ll be fine.’
On postpartum preeclampsia:
‘It’s so rare and so scary. And you’re still trying to juggle all of these things, and the world doesn’t know what’s happening quietly. And in the quiet, you’re still trying to show up for people – mostly for your children – but those things are huge medical scares.’
On Whitney Wolfe Herd:
‘The kind of friend who just always seems to know the exact right thing to say when I need perspective.’
On working from home:
‘We became moms in the pandemic, post-pandemic culture, where there is so much working from home… I don’t leave the house to go to an office; my office is here.’
On Princess Lilibet:
‘Lili still naps, she gets picked up early and she naps. She only has a half day in preschool. If she wakes up and wants to find me, she knows where to find me, even if my door is closed to the office.’
On having children:
What I do love the most about having young kids, in this chapter while I’m building [my business], is the perspective that it brings because you’re building something while your child’s going through potty training… and both are just as important… It’s like, ‘Great, OK, where’s the Cheerios? Well done’.’
She also said: ‘When you’re ruminating in the middle of the night and you’re like, ‘Oh, but the box came out the wrong texture.’ Well, is that a problem in five months? Not really because you can switch that box.’
They also talked about how having children had change their perspectives on life, with Wolfe Herd telling Meghan: ‘I think being a mother, as you know, nothing comes before that.
‘Their wellbeing is our wellbeing. And so I think it forces you to prioritise in ways that, for me, I never did before.’
Meghan also talked about balancing home and work life, and explained how her daughter Lilibet would sometimes come into her office at their property in Montecito, California, following a nap.
She told Wolfe Herd: ‘We became moms in the pandemic, post-pandemic culture, where there is so much working from home… I don’t leave the house to go to an office; my office is here.
‘Lili still naps, she gets picked up early and she naps. She only has a half day in preschool. If she wakes up and wants to find me, she knows where to find me, even if my door is closed to the office.
‘She’ll be sitting there on my lap during one of these meetings with a grid of all the executives… I wouldn’t have it any other way. I don’t want to miss those moments. I don’t want to miss pick-up if I don’t have to. I don’t want to miss drop-off.’
The Duchess continued: ‘What I do love the most about having young kids, in this chapter while I’m building [my business], is the perspective that it brings because you’re building something while your child’s going through potty training…and both are just as important…
‘It’s like, ‘Great, OK, where’s the Cheerios? Well done.’ And then you’re championing your team ten minutes later about something that is really high value for the world. In your own world, that’s super high value. And in [Lilibet’s] world, that’s super high value.’
Wolfe Herd added: ‘Technology is a beautiful tool for parents because you can dial in and be present and do a great job on the call while you sit in the carpool line outside school.
‘Like, why do I need to be at a desk? I have the same mental opinion in a carpool line.’
Wolfe Herd also described Meghan as ‘such an amazing hostess’, adding: ‘When you go to your home, you’re, like, engulfed in love and coziness, just carry – you – through, and the rest writes itself.’
The series is the latest in the former Suits actress’s flurry of output after her much-criticised Netflix lifestyle series With Love, Meghan and her new brand As Ever.
The Netflix series was panned by critics, with The Guardian describing it as a ‘gormless lifestyle filler’ and ‘so pointless it might be the Sussexes’ last TV show’, while The Telegraph branded it ‘insane’ and an ‘exercise in narcissism’.
Meghan also released a series of throwback photos to accompany the podcast’s release, saying: ‘Being an entrepreneur can start young. (By the way, all these years later and I’m still selling cookies!)
‘Tune in for the premiere episode of ‘Confessions of a Female Founder’ featuring my dear friend, @whitney, now streaming wherever you get your podcasts! @lemonadamedia.’
The pictures showed her selling cookies while wearing a brown Girl Scouts uniform – a nod to her new lifestyle brand As Ever and its shortbread butter cookies.
The Duchess also told the New York Times in an email: ‘I hope ‘Confessions of a Female Founder’ reminds listeners they’re not alone. These are honest conversations with women who’ve built from the ground up, faced challenges and kept going.’
The newspaper reported that Meghan and Wolfe Herd ‘discussed navigating media scrutiny, shaping a brand, spreading kindness, embracing self-love, prioritising family and finding strategies to tackle it all’.
Both The New York Times and People had advance access to the podcast before it was released on Lemonada Media and other platforms such as Spotify and Apple.
A trailer for the show was released on March 25, with Meghan promising ‘girl talk’ and advice on how to create ‘billion-dollar businesses’.
Meghan told one guest to think of the experience as being in a ‘dolphin tank’ rather than a ‘shark tank’, asked another whether she is single now, talks about the ‘laser focus’ needed in business, and finished her voiceover with: ‘Let’s do this, ladies.’
The eight-part podcast series is also expected to follow the Duchess’s work on her As Ever brand which has now begun selling jam, herbal teas, flower sprinkles and ready-make crepe mix.
The new show is part of a deal signed in February last year with Lemonada Media, which follows her previous series Archetypes that aired on Spotify in 2022.
That show about female stereotypes ran for just one series, and was part of the Sussexes’ previous £20million deal with Spotify, which ended the year after.