Meghan Markle surprised her fans with a special appearance in New York last night, leaving everyone stunned. The Duchess of Sussex, 43, greeted a group of her excited followers at a private members’ club during the launch of her new Netflix show.
The event, held for With Love, Meghan, took place in the screening room at Ludlow House, a Soho House venue in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Attendees, who had been following Meghan since her now-closed lifestyle blog The Tig, were there to watch the premiere of her new series. After the screening, they were caught on Meghan’s Instagram story looking shocked as she walked into the room.
Among the group, many proudly displayed what appeared to be transfer tattoos reading “As Ever,” which is the name of Meghan’s newly rebranded lifestyle brand. Alongside a photo of her new “tattoo,” Meghan shared the hashtag ‘#aseverforever.’
This new “tattoo” came just months after Prince Harry participated in a comedic skit involving a fake tattoo. In footage from New York’s East Side Ink tattoo parlor, Harry was shown getting a fake inking while promoting the Invictus Games, squealing as he sat in the tattoo chair.
At Meghan’s Netflix event, fans also received special bottles of Tignanello wine, a nod to the inspiration behind The Tig name. To mark the show’s debut, Meghan received a handwritten card from her husband, Prince Harry, and their children, Archie, 5, and Lilibet, 3. The card read, “Congratulations mumma! We love your show, and we love you!” with signatures from “Lili, Archie [and] Papa.”
Meghan also shared a video of her surprise appearance at the event with the caption: “A surprise in the Big Apple tonight.” In the short clip, she can be heard saying, “They don’t know I’m coming,” before popping out from a side door to surprise the attendees. As she entered, she asked, “What’d you guys think?”
This surprise public appearance coincides with the launch of Meghan’s new lifestyle series, With Love, Meghan. This show is the Sussexes’ second Netflix project, following their multi-million-pound deal with the streaming giant in 2020.
Other photos from the intimate screening showed Meghan interacting with her fans and exchanging friendship bracelets. She captioned one photo: “Had to make sure they saw it first,” and also wrote, “The girls that have supported me for nearly a decade!”
The appearance follows Meghan’s rebranding of her lifestyle business to As Ever, after previously using the name American Riviera Orchard, which faced trademark issues. Her Instagram stories, shared with her two million followers, came just days after she gave an exclusive interview to People magazine in anticipation of her show’s release.
In the interview, Meghan shared her gratitude, saying, “I appreciate everyone who gave me the grace to make mistakes and figure it out, and also to be forgiving with myself through that. It’s a learning curve.” She also discussed the “tons of twists and turns— even with the name,” explaining that she was figuring things out “in real-time.”
Meghan expressed that creating the series has been “super joyful,” especially as a woman, mother, and wife. She described how rediscovering herself was a “wonderful feeling.” Meghan even recalled how her son, Archie, told her, “Mama, don’t work too hard” while sleeping next to her in bed.
With Love, Meghan is a natural extension of The Tig, which Meghan launched in 2014 to share her favorite food and travel recommendations. She shut down the blog in 2017 as her relationship with Prince Harry grew more serious, ahead of their May 2018 wedding.
Ahead of the release of the eight-part series on Netflix, Meghan said the show helped her “find herself again.” Despite her strong social media following, she described herself as a “female founder” and “entrepreneur” rather than an influencer.
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