Meghan Markle is facing fresh accusations of hypocrisy in the US and UK this week after an old 2016 interview resurfaced online, in which she mocked pricey candles, apparently contradicting the luxury products now sold through her As Ever lifestyle brand.
The clip doing the rounds predates her royal life. In 2016, Meghan was still best known as an actor in Suits and the creator of her lifestyle blog The Tig. She was speaking at the Create and Cultivate conference in Atlanta, promoting a site she cast as aspirational but accessible. A year later, The Tig was shut down as her relationship with Prince Harry went public and, eventually, she joined the Royal Family. As Ever, originally unveiled as American Riviera Orchard, arrived in 2024 as her post royal commercial vehicle, offering curated honey, jams, tea and now high end candles.
Meghan Markle's 2016 Candle Comments Resurface
In the resurfaced video, Meghan is clear about where she stood at the time on expensive homeware.
'There are no $100 candles on my site, that's so obnoxious,' she told the Atlanta audience, stressing that she wanted The Tig to feel within reach. 'I just want things that like, that you can have.'
markle 2016 talking about the tig and no expensive candles on her site because that's obnoxious 😅😅 lying again pic.twitter.com/TwmuxBBflO
— helen#lifeloveandtravel (@helenlifel55) May 3, 2026
She went on to explain that she had deliberately avoided centring the brand entirely around herself. 'I didn't want MeghanMarkle.com. I don't want this just to be me,' she said in the clip, shared by the Daily Express. 'I want this to be a community much greater than that.'
Fast forward to 2024 and critics see a sharp contrast. While Meghan's As Ever candles do not quite hit the $100 mark she derided, they are firmly in the luxury bracket. According to In Touch Weekly, single candles from the line are priced at $64 each, and The Signature Scent Collection, which includes four candles and matches, sells for $256.
On paper, those figures technically comply with her old pledge. Online, nuance has not been the dominant mood.
Critics Seize On The Contrast
On Reddit and elsewhere, Meghan's pricing has been seized on as proof that she has abandoned her earlier rhetoric.
'She monetises her fans. It's embarrassing,' one user wrote, accusing the Duchess of Sussex of cashing in on the audience built up through royal and celebrity exposure.
Another was blunter about the 2016 remarks. 'What is remarkable is that she even said that in the first place. She's so judgemental of others and so full of herself. How nice to see her words catch up to her,' they posted.
A third comment folded Prince Harry into the criticism, claiming her attitude had changed once she married into the House of Windsor. 'It was only "obnoxious" when she didn't have access to H's bank account. Now that she has access to that money she's all about $500 sweaters and $300 candles,' the user wrote.
That last figure overstates the listed price of her products, but captures the frustration of those who believe she has drifted far from the girl next door ethos she once promoted. Another critic complained that Meghan 'forgets what sweeping declaration she said yesterday,' asking rhetorically how much more hypocritical she can get when she contradicts what she said a decade ago.
From The Tig To As Ever
What is not in dispute is that Meghan's commercial world has changed dramatically since that Atlanta panel. The Tig was once a lifestyle blog in her own name, built around travel, food, fashion and personal essays, with pricing that was meant to feel accessible. By 2017, with her engagement to Prince Harry, the site was shut down and its archives pulled, a move widely seen as part of a wider image reset before royal life.
As Ever is a different proposition. Launched in 2024 as American Riviera Orchard and later rebranded, it leans into Montecito style domesticity, with curated jars of jam and honey, elegant teas and scented candles carrying luxury price tags. It is not pitched as a budget alternative to mass market homeware.
No representative for Meghan or As Ever is quoted responding to the hypocrisy accusations, and there is no sign she has addressed the resurfaced video. That leaves outsiders to judge the contradiction for themselves.
Her defenders would argue that a decade has passed, her life is unrecognisable and that $64 candles are not the same as the $100 examples she mocked. Critics see something else, reading the shift as another case of saying one thing in public and doing another when there is money to be made.
Nothing about the business itself is in dispute. As Ever sells candles at the prices quoted, and people are free to buy them or ignore them. The real battle is over narrative, and over who gets to decide whether this is authentic growth or an expensive U turn.
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