Meghan Markle ‘crushed and humiliated’ amid claims she’s starting new ‘war’ with Kate Middleton

If you throw a stone in a large city, quaint town, or even minuscule village, you will likely hit an adult human. This adult human has a good-to-fair chance of being a serious adult who is both concerned with and burdened by serious adult issues. These issues can be emotional (treating a childhood wound), financial (budgeting for a holiday), or logistical (“Who’s going to watch the kids this weekend?”).

Anyway, let’s talk about the alleged “jam war” between Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle, the latter of whom is also reportedly none too pleased by the negative response to her new Netflix show With Love, Meghan.

According to a Royals insider who spoke recently with Closer, Meghan (who has “rebranded” herself as Meghan Sussex per With Love, Meghan — a move that those of us in the real world simply call “changing one’s name”) was sure that her new show was going to be her Martha Stewart moment. A 38% critic approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes after 24 reviews (together with a 21% audience score), however, suggests that that fantasy has been put to bed.

The show purports to redefine lifestyle programming, with each episode portraying a day in the life of Meghan at her Montecito villa. Here, she cooks, gardens, chats with her famous besties, and offers home tips and tricks that prioritize “playfulness over perfection.” But since its March 4 Netflix debut, the show has been described with such words as “a Montecito ego trip,” “polite but distant,” “impersonal,” and “pointless.”

This, combined with the usual suspects who jump down Meghan’s throat whenever she so much as breathes, has reportedly weighed heavily on the Duchess of Sussex. As the source puts it:

She’s devastated. She has tried to plaster on a smile and cling on to the fact that the show reached the top 10 for a couple of days. But deep down, she knows those ratings would have been from all the intrigue surrounding her, and possibly not a genuine interest in the programme itself.

But wait, what’s this about a jam war between Meghan and Kate? Well, it’s exactly what it sounds like — a very serious, adult conflict being speculated upon by serious adults, of course.

For context, Meghan’s new show was released shortly after the Princess of Wales, Kate Middleton, visited a group of gardeners in Wales and promised to send them a plum jam recipe. Meanwhile, on the eve of With Love, Meghan‘s premiere, the Duchess of Sussex launched a new slate of products under her As Ever brand, one of them being raspberry jam that she mentions a few times during the show.

This resulted in Royals commentator and alleged serious adult Charles Rae to claim that Meghan and Kate have commenced some sort of jam war — a clash that will no doubt be decided by either party’s choice of secondary and tertiary munitions. Indeed, they may both be bringing their own jam to the table, but what of the toast and eggs? Would a whole wheat offensive by Meghan prove capable of toppling Kate’s sunny-side-up defensive bulwark? We’ll be on the front lines — orange juice in hand — with the latest developments, don’t you worry.