'So Fake' Meghan Markle Slammed Over 'Contrived' New Video of Barefoot Prince Harry

A barefoot Prince Harry, perched on a desk in a cosy home office, is not the sort of image that used to define the monarchy. Yet here we are, six years after the Sussexes' exit, watching an Instagram Story where the Duke of Sussex looks delighted to receive a box of chocolates from his wife's brand, and where a simple 'Ooh, yes please' is enough to trigger a small online skirmish.

Meghan Markle filmed the clip herself and posted it on 5 February. She walks in carrying a box of four chocolate bars from her As Ever brand's collaboration with Los Angeles chocolatier Compartés, and Harry, barefoot, laptop open, reaches in, selecting the white chocolate bar. 'White chocolate? You got it,' Meghan replies, before he adds, 'Thank you, love you.'​

It is domestic, mildly dorky, and, depending on your disposition, either charmingly ordinary or painstakingly staged. The reaction split right down that familiar fault line.

Meghan Markle Prince Harry Video And The 'Contrived' Backlash

The Daily Express framed the pushback in blunt terms, reporting that some royal fans branded the clip 'contrived' and 'cringe', with one X user suggesting 'things must be getting desperate' if Meghan is 'roping Prince Harry in' for an As Ever promotion. Another wrote, 'It's SO contrived!!!!', while others called it 'tragic' or 'so fake'.​

This is the strange tax attached to the Sussexes: even the most mundane moment is treated like evidence in a long-running trial about authenticity. If Harry smiles, it's a performance.

If Meghan posts, it's a strategy. There are celebrities who can flog anything from protein powder to property schemes without setting off alarms; Meghan hands her husband chocolate and the discourse behaves like it has just discovered a new Watergate tape.

Some of that is undeniably about the couple themselves. They have made intimacy part of their public brand, and you don't get to do that, repeatedly, lucratively, loudly, then complain when people judge the optics.

But it's also about the audience: a fatigued public that has been trained to see 'content' as inherently manipulative, and to treat any sponsored-looking domesticity as suspicious.

Meghan Markle Prince Harry Video And The As Ever Chocolate Push

The clip is also, unavoidably, commerce. People Magazine reports the chocolates are part of As Ever's expanded collaboration with Compartés, featuring four flavours, and notes the brand previously teamed up with the chocolatier for a pre-Christmas collection in December 2025 that 'quickly sold out.'

In the new video, Harry goes for the White Chocolate Bar with flower sprinkles and hemp hearts, an oddly specific detail that feels like it was designed to travel.​

The Express claimed Meghan's Valentine's Day bundles and a white chocolate bar duo were 'seemingly sold out' after the video, which is exactly the sort of sales bump influencers dream of and critics resent.

Whether that's savvy marketing or just the internet doing what it always does, rewarding attention with friction, depends on how you view the Sussex machine.

Still, the most revealing part of the whole episode might be the simplest. Harry, once photographed in stiff ceremonial dress and marched through palaces like a symbol, is now filmed in bare feet in a room with military patches behind him, taking chocolate from his wife and sounding, annoyingly to some, perfectly content.

The clip doesn't settle any argument about Meghan Markle. It simply reminds you that the public has never stopped wanting to narrate her.