The British media is going gaga with the news that Meghan Markle is open to the idea of using her name to market hotels.
That is, one might soon by staying at a branded Meghan Markle hotel.
Why not?
Markle’s As Ever brand is more likely the name, I imagine, although I am not following her TV series where she shows the world the finer points of home-keeping, hospitality and conviviality.
The Sun — one of the newspapers in the U.K. we call the Red Tops, as their brand name in the top-left hand corner of the front page is written across a red box — revealed the news. The rest of the Red Tops have feverishly followed suit, which, I guess, is what I am doing now.
The Sun reported Markle has trademarked the brand “As Ever” for “hospitality services, covering restaurants, lodging and provision of food and drink.”
Markle, of course, is Duchess of Sussex, the wife of Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex. Harry is King Charles III’s youngest son. Charles' older son is Prince William, Prince of Wales, the heir to the United Kingdom throne.
When Markle became engaged to Harry in 2017 and married him in 2018, the press in the U.K. were jubilant, falling over one another to get in first that this marriage was a breath of fresh air to refresh the Royal Family’s perceived stuffiness.
Markle is independently successful; she is American, no less from Los Angeles, which in British terms was founded yesterday, and she is mixed race — her own definition — with a Caucasian father and African American mother.
Neither she nor Harry receive funding from the U.K. public purse, as do so-called “working Royals.”
Shortly after a grace period, at which time, presumably, Markle and Harry stopped giving them all the access they required to help sell newspapers, the Red Tops fell over each other again telling us all how beastly she was, an editorial angle that has not changed as far as I can see.
The British media is ruthless. It has the idea that it alone has created stars, so if you do not play ball with their often lowest-common-denominator editorial, you will be then picked apart. It was “canceling” people long before that term became common fodder.
In 2022 — which brought the end of the 70-year reign of Queen Elizabeth II — the U.K. needed change in the Royal Family. But the inherent “system” in the U.K. seemingly does not allow outsiders, however much people might claim it now can.
Anyway, Markle was treated horribly in the U.K., so we can all do our bit by staying at the x-room (Hotel) … by As Ever when it comes to a city or location near you.
Markle would follow a long line of celebrities who wish to have hotels built in their name or image.
Football sensation Cristiano Ronaldo has his C7 hotel brand — C for Cristiano, 7 being his shirt number for most of the clubs he played for and for his national side, Portugal.
Not to be outdone, equally brilliant football star Lionel Messi has his Messi & Majestic hotel brand, with boutique hotels in Andorra and five in Spain.
Fashion brands, high-end automobile brands and others are also obvious tie-ins with hotels, and we have all lately seen the rise of retail-brand hotel-style private branded residences.
Markle is the latest to consider the idea, and, again, why not.
Maybe the hotels will adopt style pointers from London’s Soho House 76 Dean Street, which, apparently, is where Markle and Harry met.
I doubt the editors of the Red Tops will stay in one of her hotels. More likely, they’d send a reporter to try and find faults.
In time-tested fashion, the hotel itself does not make mention of its guests.
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