Meghan Markle reveals 'mentor' Oprah Winfrey played major role in her lifestyle brand

Meghan Markle has revealed how her "mentor and friend" Oprah Winfrey offered her business advice when she was mulling over setting up her lifestyle brand. The Duchess of Sussex made the revelation on the latest episode of her podcast Confessions of A Female Founder, where this week she chats with the co-founder of IT Cosmetics Jamie Kern Lima.

The pair talk about getting their business off the ground, with Meghan describing how chat show host Oprah, who she gave a bombshell interview to in 2021, told her to "encapsulate your essence" when she was first deciding whether to launch her brand As Ever, which so far sells fruit spreads, honey and tea.

Meghan says: "At the beginning, I just liked making jam. All I liked to do was just make jam and preserves. And it went from, 'Okay, I'm gonna share this jam with lots of friends and family,' to 'People really like it and it brings me joy. So maybe I can share it more broadly'.

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"But even then, I was in so much fear of failure or opinion, that I wasn't thinking big enough at first…I thought, 'I'll just do small batch jam from home.' 'And I had to step back and look at what I was doing and saying, 'Am I playing small because I want to play small? Or am I setting in motion playing small because I'm scared?'"

And she added: "Oprah, who I know as a mentor and friend to you, same for me, she was the one that said, 'There are tons of things you could put your name on. But for you and how you like to show up for people, once you figure out how to encapsulate your essence, then you'll know'."

Jamie, Meghan's guest this week, founded her firm IT Cosmetics in 2008 after developing products for people with rosacea and hyperpigmentation. She sold the brand in a billion-dollar deal with L'Oreal but tells the podcast how she was rejected for "three years straight" as she tried to get her products in stores.

And Meghan also reveals how she was told not to audition for beauty adverts when she was an actress due to her freckles. Meghan says: "That would have been when I was an actor, auditioning for commercials. And I remember my commercial agent could not submit me for beauty or skincare ads because I had freckles.'

She praised Jamie for using women of all ages and skin tones as her models, adding: "That was such new thinking then. When you were bringing that to market that was so [unheard of]. Now it may seem more normalised." The new podcast comes just a day after Meghan appeared on Jamie's show and told her how she is enjoying a new “honeymoon” feeling with her husband since the pair got “a little bit of breathing space” after stepping back from their royal duties.

Meghan said the couple struggled to fully enjoy one another’s company early in their relationship as they were quickly put into “the trenches” by the media spotlight. The pair started dating in 2016 and married in 2018, initially taking on royal duties before deciding to step back from their roles in 2020, leading to strained relations between Harry and the King and the Prince of Wales.

She said: “You have to imagine at the beginning, everyone has, like, butterflies. Then we immediately went into the trenches together. Yeah, right out of the gate, like six months into dating. So now, seven years later, when you have a little bit of breathing space, you can just enjoy each other in a new way, and that’s why I feel like it’s more of a honeymoon period for us now.” The duchess praised her husband for keeping the family “safe”.

Meghan also became emotional when talking about her children, Archie and Lilibet, and revealed that she sends emails to secret addresses she has created for them to read when they are older.

“Before I go to bed, almost every night, I email them, like, here’s your report card from today, or, oh my gosh, wasn’t it the funniest thing this morning? Or here’s a picture of you two having breakfast, or here’s you playing. The things that you’re not going to frame, the things that you’re not going to put pen to paper in a journal, but which they will end up seeing at one point in their life, maybe when they’re 16 or when they’re 18.

“I’ll say, here’s an email that I’ve been keeping for you. Here’s everything and every moment that I wanted to tell you how much I love you and, like, how proud I am of you.”