Meghan Markle sat across from Oprah Winfrey and accused the royal family of racism, and Hollywood handed her a $100 million reward.
Five years later, the market is done waiting.
This week, a cat video compilation delivered the answer Hollywood had been too polite to give.
Cookie Queens Box Office Flop: What the Numbers Behind the Cat Video Loss Actually Show
Cookie Queens, the Girl Scout documentary Meghan Markle executive produced through Archewell Productions, opened August 7 in 446 theaters and earned $354,000.
CatVideoFest 2026 – seventy minutes of skateboarding cats and fan-submitted clips – played on 255 screens and earned $569,000.
The cat videos ran in half as many theaters and made 60 percent more money.
An industry source described the return to The Times as "a pitiful return."
Royal commentator Kinsey Schofield told Fox News Digital the result reveals a gap that has been widening for years.
"Harry and Meghan remain extraordinarily effective at generating headlines, but headlines and paying customers are two very different things," Schofield said.
"There was a period when simply attaching their names to something guaranteed enormous curiosity. I'm not convinced that's true anymore."
Meghan personally promoted Cookie Queens ahead of its theatrical debut, attending a July screening in Los Angeles and appearing alongside Harry at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year.
"There's no getting around the optics of finishing five places behind a 70-minute compilation of internet cat videos," Schofield said. "Hollywood can forgive a lot, but being beaten by CatVideoFest is the sort of indignity that writes its own punchline."
British royal expert Hilary Fordwich named the real problem.
"The extremely underwhelming box office is a clear indication that, yet again, unless they are bashing the royals and sharing inside stories, secrets and betraying the privacy of the family, there isn't much they have that is at all in demand nor popular," Fordwich told Fox News Digital.
Meghan Markle Netflix Canceled, Spotify Gone: The Six-Year Hollywood Pattern Nobody Can Ignore
Cookie Queens is not an isolated stumble.
It is the latest entry in a pattern that started the moment Harry and Meghan traded the royal family for Hollywood.
Their Spotify deal, signed in 2020, produced exactly one podcast season before the streamer walked away.
Spotify executive Bill Simmons did not walk quietly.
He called the pair "f—ing grifters" on his own podcast after the cancellation.
Netflix told the same story with different numbers.
Harry & Meghan, released in 2022, debuted with 81.6 million hours viewed in its first three days – the biggest documentary premiere in Netflix history at the time.
The secret to those numbers was not talent or storytelling.
It was the attacks on the royal family.
With Love, Meghan, the lifestyle cooking series Meghan launched in 2025, drew 526,000 households in its premiere week compared to 2.1 million for Harry & Meghan.
Season 2 generated 2 million total views over four months, landing it in 1,217th place on Netflix's internal rankings – one spot behind an animated French children's cartoon.
Netflix cut ties with Meghan's As Ever lifestyle brand in March 2026.
"Her show did not go on, so it did not make sense to continue the partnership," a Netflix source told the New York Post.
Meghan's second podcast, Confessions of a Female Founder, launched in 2025 and went on hiatus within months.
Why Meghan Markle and Prince Harry Only Win When They Attack the Royal Family
Royal expert Richard Fitzwilliams told Fox News Digital the pattern is impossible to miss.
"We all know their huge hits were the three infamous betrayals of the royal family – on Oprah, the Netflix series 'Harry & Meghan' and Harry's memoir Spare," Fitzwilliams said.
Schofield named what six years of failed projects actually prove.
"People want to consume content about Harry and Meghan," she said. "But are they equally interested in consuming content from Harry and Meghan?"
Six years of canceled deals now answer that question.
Netflix quietly ranked Meghan's cooking show below a French children's cartoon, then ended the partnership entirely.
Last weekend, cat videos finished the job.
At some point, the market stops asking politely.
Sources:
- Christina Dugan Ramirez, Ashley Papa, and Stephanie Nolasco, "Meghan Markle, Prince Harry's box-office flop shows 'infamy' doesn't equal success: expert," Fox News, August 15, 2026.
- "REPORT: Netflix Gives Meghan Markle The Boot," The Daily Caller, March 6, 2026.
- "Meghan Markle's New Podcast in Uphill Battle After 'Archetypes' Flop Deemed 'Woke, Irrelevant,'" Fox Business, February 15, 2024.
- Emily Smith, "Netflix source: Meghan Markle's show 'did not go on,'" New York Post, March 2026.