Meghan Markle & Sarah Ferguson's Royal Downfalls Are Surprisingly Similar

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Sarah Ferguson and Meghan Markle had remarkably similar experiences in the royal family. As British columnist Sarah Vine pointed out in a September 2025 piece for the Daily Mail, the Duchess of York and the Duchess of Sussex both married the younger brother of someone who was in direct line for the throne. Then, they were both overshadowed by figures like Diana, Princess of Wales and Catherine, Princess of Wales. Likewise, both women also had tumultuous relationships with their more popular sisters-in-law. In May 2025, an insider informed Us Weekly that Kate Middleton had cut ties with Meghan for good and didn't even want to hear her name anymore. Obviously, the princess' reported dislike for the "Suits" alum likely stemmed from the whole Megxit debacle. Meanwhile, in former royal butler Paul Burrell's 2025 book, "The Royal Insider," he wrote that Diana's close relationship with Sarah Ferguson was irrevocably altered after the Duchess of York wrote about the Princess of Wales and her two children in her 1996 memoir. 

Burrell claimed that "Diana felt used" and subsequently cut ties with her once close relative as a result. These royal tensions didn't exactly bode well for Meghan and Sarah's reputations since they further pitted them against their already-beloved sisters-in-law. Notably, in a March 2023 Times Radio interview, Sarah Ferguson herself admitted that being compared to Diana was harder than she let on. The Duchess of York confessed to using food as a coping mechanism to deal with the complex feelings that stemmed from watching the media body-shame her with cruel nicknames while gushing over the People's Princess' beauty. However, the similarities in their reputational downfalls don't end there either.

In Sarah Vine's Daily Mail article, she also pointed out that both Meghan Markle and Sarah Ferguson opened up about their grapples with the royal family on public platforms. After dealing with numerous scandals, the Duchess of York tried to get back into the public's good graces through her 2011 documentary series "Finding Sarah." However, it received largely mixed reactions, with Variety noting that Sarah's comeback efforts fell flat because it was difficult to empathize with the struggles of someone who had made so little of their privileged life. According to Metacritic, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's 2022 Netflix series "Harry & Meghan" similarly received mixed reviews from critics. 

Worse, the average user rating showed an "overwhelming dislike" of the royal defectors. Both women have also tried to score some brownie points with the public by releasing products. In November 2020, Sarah launched the "Brew For Crew" tea and biscuits as a charity initiative for frontline workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Although the duchess' heart was undoubtedly in the right place with her initiative, the simple products still came with hefty price tags. 

People could either shell out $46 to snag 80 tea bags and four biscuit packets or pay $26 for the tea bags alone. Meanwhile, Meghan Markle's lifestyle brand As Ever's rollout faced some hiccups along the way and earned not-so-great first reviews. Further, after fans got their hands on the initial batch of products, they felt that Meghan's jam was doing way too much and called her out on her hypocrisy from a newsletter that made some questionable claims about the product's packaging.