Meghan Markle’s Lifestyle Guru Re-Launch Threatened by L.A. Fires

Meghan Markle’s re-re-re-launch could be another victim of the fires currently ravaging Los Angeles.

As large sections of the city continue to burn, Netflix has decided to delay the launch of the Duchess’ new cooking and homemaking show.

The series premiere has been pushed back from Jan. 15 to March 4 as “we focus on the needs of those impacted by the wildfires in my home state of California,” the Duchess of Sussex said in a statement released Sunday, reported People.

Hollywood’s guiding principle tends to be that the show must go on, but Meghan’s show now joins events including the Oscar nominations, the Critics Choice Awards, and a raft of premieres which have been postponed or cancelled.

Few could blame Meghan, often criticized for being out of touch, if she feared it might not be exactly the right moment to release a ton of aspirational footage of her whipping up cookies and cake with her celebrity friends.

Meghan this weekend made a high-profile trip to a center helping victims of the fire, where she handed out food and supplies to affected families. Meghan’s new social media account, however, has remained focused on promoting her glossy new show with a call to action to help victims of the fire published on their less high-profile personal website.

One Hollywood executive told the Daily Beast that the decision to delay the show would ultimately be down to Netflix.

The source added: “A moment where people’s homes are literally burning down in L.A. is not the ideal moment to release an aspirational homemaking show set just up the road.”

The stakes are high for the couple after a string of failures, including a five-part documentary about polo, amid reports executives at Netflix are “exhausted” by working with Meghan. Her jam and homeware brand, American Riviera Orchard, soft-launched with great fanfare last year, remains obstinately absent from shelves.

Netflix has reportedly bought the rights to hit novel, Meet Me At The Lake, for Archewell to develop—but the project has yet to enter production.

Tony Case, a marketing expert and writer, previously told the Daily Beast: “Harry and Meghan are box office poison. From a brand perspective, I’m not really sure anything can be done at this point to reverse consumers’ obvious apathy toward the Sussexes. They set out to conquer America, but nobody here, it turned out, found them or what they’re peddling to be particularly compelling.”

Digital consultants told the Daily Beast that Meghan could turn to social media influencing to make money if the TV career doesn’t work out. Gary Frayter, a social media director at Kronus Communications, last week told the Daily Beast: “Meghan could easily pull in $100k per post, minimum. The same goes for Harry.”

Kate embraces the scarcity principle

Kate Middleton, 43 this week and recovering from a cancer scare last year, has made it clear that she won’t be attending hundreds of engagements a year as Princess of Wales. Instead, sources say, there will be a limited number of high-profile events and some high impact all-digital initiatives.

In practice this means that every Kate appearance will now be a huge media event, and the biggest of the year so far looks set to be her arrival at the UK film and TV awards, the BAFTAs, in February. Chairperson Anna Higgs has said she is “very hopeful” Kate will show, and an insider tells the Daily Mail that the British academy is “throwing everything at securing” Kate’s involvement.