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Photo montage of Meghan Markle and Princess Michael of Kent
Photos by Patrick van Katwijk/Karwai Tang/WireImage/Getty Images

Meghan Markle’s Netflix series might’ve been pulled, but today is still a big day for the Royal Family

Their paths cross again.

Meghan Markle nearly eclipsed a landmark Royal birthday with the release of her new Netflix series before it was delayed in light of the devastating fires raging through the outer Los Angeles area.

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Jan. 15, previously the release date for With Love, Meghan — the duchess’ brand-new lifestyle reality series — is also the birthday of Princess Michael of Kent, who turns a very round 80 years old on Wednesday. Meghan and the princess, born Baroness Marie-Christine von Reibnitz, have been at odds once in the past.

Princess Michael of Kent’s many controversies

Photo montage of Princess Michael of Kent and the blackamoor brooch she wore to the Queen's Christmas lunch in 2017.
Photos by Awakening/ Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images

The late Queen Elizabeth II’s first cousin by marriage, Princess Michael of Kent, borrows her name from her husband — Prince Michael of Kent — whom she married in 1978. Prince Michael is one of nine grandchildren of King George V, along with the late queen, and her sister Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon. He is 52nd in line to the British throne as of 2024.

Before that, however, Michael had to forfeit his place in the royal order of succession in order to marry his current wife, since she was a Catholic divorcee. That old-fashioned decision was, of course, walked back in 2015 after 2013’s Succession to the Crown Act changed some of the rules.

But that wasn’t the only controversy surrounding Marie-Christine after she married into the British Royal Family. In 1985, the Daily Mirror revealed that her father had been a member of the Nazi paramilitary organization Schutzstaffel (the SS). According to royal biographer Tina Brown, per the Daily Mail, this earned her the nickname of ‘The Fuhrer’ by Princess Diana.

Diana’s daughter-in-law, Meghan, might also not be Princess Michael of Kent’s biggest fan as, in 2017, she wore a brooch that could be considered racist to the Queen’s Christmas lunch. The jewelry depicted a Black man wearing a turban and is believed to be an example of Blackamoor, a visual motif typically found in Early Modern European decorative art featuring African men in lavish clothing. Its ties to the colonial era and slavery have led historians to label Blackamoor as racist or culturally insensitive.

Meghan, who had just initiated her life in the Royal Family as Prince Harry’s girlfriend at the time, reportedly wondered if Marie-Christine, who was then 72, was trying to send her some kind of message. “In this family, sometimes you are part of the problem rather than part of the solution. There is a huge level of unconscious bias,” Harry said of his royal relatives in Netflix’s Harry & Meghan years later. Princess Michael was quick to apologize for causing distress, noting that the infamous brooch was “a gift and has been worn many times before.”

Los Angeles native Meghan has been participating in fire relief efforts

Photo montage of Meghan Markle at the 2024 SXSW and in Altadena in January 2025.
Photos by Gary Miller/MediaNews Group/Pasadena Star-News/Getty Images

Although Meghan’s solo return to the screens was much anticipated, as a Los Angeles native, the devastation of the wildfires that have been affecting the region for a week now has hit close to home for the duchess.

Meghan, along with Harry, has been an active participant in relief efforts, offering the couple’s home to victims, donating money through their Archewell Foundation, and serving meals to evacuees and displaced peoples at the Pasadena Convention Center. On Tuesday, the Montecito area, where the Sussexes purchased their $29 million mansion in 2o20, was given a “red flag warning” for “extreme fire danger” thanks to the unrelenting Santa Ana winds. They have not been told to evacuate so far.

With Love, Meghan is now scheduled to hit Netflix on March 4, 2025.


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Author
Image of Francisca Tinoco
Francisca Tinoco
Francisca is a pop culture enthusiast and film expert. Her Bachelor's Degree in Communication Sciences from Nova University in Portugal and Master's Degree in Film Studies from Oxford Brookes University in the UK have allowed her to combine her love for writing with her love for the movies. She has been a freelance writer and content creator for five years, working in both the English and Portuguese languages for various platforms, including WGTC.