Meghan Markle’s Confessions of a Female Founder is toe-curling and unsubtle dross

At the beginning of the debut episode of Meghan Markle’s new podcast, she is keen to assert her own identity. After flirting with tradwifedom in her most recent Netflix show With Love, Meghan, she is now casting off her brief nomenclature of “Meghan Sussex,” but nor should you refer to The Artist Formerly Known As The Duchess of Sussex as “Meghan Markle” any longer. Instead, she is simply “Meghan” these days, like Madonna, Buddha or, to name another showboating and opportunistic celebrity who had a penchant for backing into the limelight, Liberace.

Not that Confessions of a Female Founder features anything so interesting as its presenter offering the world a virtuoso piano solo. Instead, the only musical instrument that is being played here is, as usual, the tiniest of violins, as the 43-year old interviews the marvelously named Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd. Somehow, incredibly, Meghan manages to make it all about herself, all over again. Under any normal circumstances, you would feel deeply sorry for her revelation that she has suffered from the painful and frightening condition postpartum preeclampsia – as Wolfe Herd also has – but here it is simply served up as yet another titbit, another revelation that will strengthen her vulnerable-yet-indomitable qualities, and allow her most ardent admirers to flock behind her in the process.

If you’ve listened to Meghan’s earlier podcast Archetypes, which Spotify canceled after its first installment of a dozen episodes in 2022, you will know what to expect: the presenter has clearly subscribed to the school of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” (Both podcasts are produced by the same production company, Lemonada Media, presumably in the spirit of “if life gives you lemons, make a podcast.”) So there are uplifting slogans, mutual love-ins, toe-curling references to getting sedately sloshed on rosé and, of course, unsubtle plugs for Meghan’s new lifestyle brand, As Ever, which is described, without any apparent irony, as “an extension of my essence.” For those of us who thought that it was a collection of overpriced preserves and honey, the knowledge that Meghan’s essence can be captured and sold in a jar at a shopping mall (not all that) near you will be a salutary one indeed.

Confessions of a Female Founder suffers mostly from its presenter not being terribly good when it comes to the format. As with Archetypes, which was rumored to have had substantial post-production editing and tampering, the back-and-forth between Meghan and Wolfe Herd never feels natural or spontaneous. Instead, amid the back-slapping, there is a frustrating lack of curiosity about the nuts and bolts of entrepreneurship which means that if anyone had a serious interest in how to launch a successful business without being married either to a member of the British royal family or an oil billionaire, this would be an unrewarding 45-minute listen. But this is not a boot camp in business management, but a light and fluffy exercise in brand management, and should be listened to as such.

The timing of its release, however, has been unfortunate. 2025 was supposed to be Meghan’s year to shine – hence the Netflix show, the brand launch and now the podcast. Yet as her husband appears at the UK High Court this week in an attempt to force the government to allow him to hire the country’s police force as his private security for his family if they deign to return to Britain, and the Sentebale hoo-ha shows no signs of disappearing after the company’s referral to the Charity Commission for a regulatory compliance case, she might be forgiven for feeling that her hard work in self-promotion has been overshadowed by other, rather more significant events. Confessions Of A Female Founder promises, or threatens, another seven episodes, which will take listeners up until the end of May. Given how tumultuous the year so far has been for Brand Sussex, only the most Pollyanna-ish of observers would not bet on something consequential – and potentially embarrassing – happening long before the show runs its course.