Meghan Markle is set to make a spectacular return to public life in 2025, it has been reported.
The Duchess of Sussex, 43, has kept a relatively low profile over the last few months but has attended a handful of events without her husband Prince Harry.
Meghan has been ‘keeping her cards close to her chest’ but is working hard on her brand American Riviera Orchard and a new Netflix show around ‘cooking, gardening and entertaining’, sources told PageSix.
According to the website, the show is set to air in ‘early 2025’, joined by the launch of her lifestyle brand – after months of confusion surrounding its apparent lack of progress.
An insider told the paper: ‘She’s been keeping her cards close to her chest. But I can tell you that she is the CEO of American Riviera Orchard, so all these rumors about her having a hard time finding a CEO are false.’
Another added: ‘As far as Meghan being quiet, she’s been in the background working on her entrepreneurial efforts. Both the Netflix project and her brand will come out within the same timeline in the New Year.’
‘It’s going to be a good year for Meghan specifically, she’s spent the majority of the year doing work behind the scenes to launch a project in the first few months of 2025.’
Meghan initially launched her American Riviera Orchard brand in March, sending out jars of jam to her celebrity pals including The Office’s Mindy Kaling, her Suits co-star Abigail Spencer and even Kris Jenner.
Meghan Markle is set to make a spectacular return to public life in 2025, it has been reported. Meghan and Harry are pictured in May during their Nigeria tour
Meanwhile she was said to have ‘wrapped up filming’ for her new cooking and home show in July, according to Hollywood sources.
The untitled project in Montecito is being produced by Sony Pictures Television’s The Intellectual Property Corporation and is part of Meghan and Harry’s $100million Netflix deal.
The show was filmed at a property two miles from Meghan’s $14.5million Montecito mansion, which she and Prince Harry, 39, share with children Archie and Lilibet.
In June, the Duchess sent friend and actor Nacho Figueras a PR package containing some dog biscuits and a jar of raspberry jam from her new brand.
In April, the mother-of-two sent a number of strawberry jam jars, which were part of an initial batch of 50, to celebrity pals, including Kris Jenner, Mindy Kaling and Chrissy Teigen.
But months later, and the only sign of activity has been the jars of jam and dog biscuits sent to the duchess’s friends and social media influencers.
The Duchess of Sussex has also asked US authorities for more time to get her lifestyle brand off the ground.
Meghan’s legal team has asked US authorities for an extension in her attempt to secure a trademark for her American Riviera Orchard brand.
Meghan has so far only released snippets of her brand American Riviera Orchard (pictured)
Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex during The Duke and Duchess of Sussex Colombia Visit on August 17, 2024
Many of her celebrity pals, including Kris Jenner, have sampled the jam
Chrissy Teigen and her husband John Legend were among the A-listers to join Meghan Markle’s select circle of ‘jamfluencers’ who were given a chance to sample her new product earlier this year
Meghan has asked US authorities for more time to get her lifestyle brand off the ground
She first applied for the trademark for her jams and homemade goods in the summer – but the bid was rejected in August due to issues with the filing.
Meghan was then given three months to address errors and challenges to the application.
She has now asked for another three months to complete this. If the deadline is missed, the application will need to be started again.
American Rivera Orchard soft launched earlier this year as a lifestyle brand that will sell products such as jams and cookbooks
Meghan first lodged documents with the US Patent and Trademark Office earlier this year but suffered an embarrassing blow when the forms were not filled in correctly.
Remarkably, the application wasn’t even signed and she didn’t send enough money.
Meanwhile, Meghan and Harry have put on a united front in a brand new video set to their friend Chris Martin‘s music to promote the work of their Archewell Foundation.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have spent recent months focussing on more solo charity and business ventures, rarely appearing together since their joint tour to Colombia over the summer.
But despite reports of a ‘professional separation’, they are front and centre of a new behind-the-scenes video of Archewell’s major moments of the past 12 months with Coldplay‘s Sky Full of Stars as the soundtrack to the near-two minute film.
The Patent Office is now querying the way the letter ‘O’ for Orchard is depicted on the intricate and swirling logo for the company. The launch would boost the fortunes of Meghan and Harry following the end of their $20million Spotify deal
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have released their annual report for their charity the Archewell Foundation, with a video of them together at various events in the US and abroad
It shows the couple together at a number of events as well as Meghan cooking with women plus footage of their trips across the US and abroad – mainly together and sometimes apart.
Last night the Archewell Foundation released its annual report, which reveals that the Sussexes’ have partnered with US President Joe Biden‘s daughter Ashley to create a wellness hub for women impacted by trauma in Philadelphia which pioneers a radical new type of therapy.
The charity’s US tax return for 2023 has also been published, which reveals income has reached $5.7million last year, mainly thanks to a mystery benefactor who gave $5million in a single donation plus $335,000 from five other individuals.
The Archewell Foundation handed out $1.3million in grants to good causes in the US and other parts of the world. Expenditure on other costs such as salaries, event costs, legal fees and travel was just under $2million in 2023.
Harry and Meghan are directors but do not get paid a salary. The charity’s tax return says they work a nominal one-hour-per-week, which according to People is ‘a standard practice for directors of US tax-exempt organisations’.
But the Sussexes’ right-hand man James Holt, a co-executive director, was paid a $228,500 salary plus $18,428 in benefits from January to December 2023.
Co-executive director Shauna Nep, who is also close to the royal couple, earned a salary of $272,241 plus additional benefits totaling $26,356. Communications manager Deesha Tank was paid $140,000 plus $7,100 in ‘other compensation’, according to the US tax filings.
The new report reveals they paid $155,000 to Herlihy Loughran. It is run by Beth Herlihy, a former actress who once played a stripper in UK teen soap opera Hollyoaks and has been a loyal worker for the Sussexes after she was laid off by Kensington Palace following Megxit.
Meghan hugs a young woman at one of the couple’s Archewell-related events with Harry out of shot to her left
Founded by Prince Harry and Meghan, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, the Archewell Foundation is now in its third full year of operation.
It has continued to grow its two signature programmes – The Archewell Foundation Parents’ Network and The Welcome Project.
Following a successful pilot, The Archewell Foundation Parents’ Network launched publicly in August 2024.
Its mission is to unite parents with first-hand experience of the dangers social media poses to children.
Launched in 2023, The Welcome Project continues to empower refugee women through women-led programming. There are currently 15 active Welcome Projects across the US that are fostering connection and belonging through a range of activities including sewing, art, hiking, swimming, photography, storytelling and cooking.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, who insisted that they would remain politically neutral in public ahead of the presidential election in November, are now connected with America’s First Daughter Ashley Biden, 43, albeit through a non-partisan initiative.
