Meghan Markle has been named the most disappointing celebrity of 2025 by her former hometown paper Toronto Star.
Duchess of Sussex, 44, spent seven years of her life the Canadian city while filming hit Netflix show, Suits, before journeying across the pond with Prince Harry.
And after the two fell for each other at the end of July 2016, the Duke reportedly flew under the radar to Toronto so he could visit the woman with whom he was ‘besotted’.
Meanwhile, Meghan has long gushed over her love for Ontario’s provincial capital, revealing it allowed her to live a ‘normal life’ during her Suits fame.
It was also where the couple first decided to make their first public debut at Harry’s 2017 Invictus Games – a sporting event set up for injured service personnel.
And more recently, in November, Harry thanked Meghan’s former hometown at the annual True Patriot Love Foundation National Tribute Dinner for giving him ‘a wife’.
But now, the city’s local paper, the Toronto Star, has taken a brutal swipe at Meghan, lambasting her as the ‘most disappointing celebrity’ of the year in an opinion piece.
The article, written by Patricia Treble, believed the Duchess has ‘all the ingredients’ of becoming a worldwide sensation, five years after leaving the royals.
And while they do not describe Meghan as ‘an abject failure’, she does believe Meghan has failed to deliver in the last 12 months and has become ‘slowly deflated’.
She criticised the mother-of-two for having ‘no signs’ of an official renewal for her Netflix show, With Love Meghan, or a second season of her podcast.
The local paper also took aim at the Sussexes’ new ‘multi-year, first look deal for film and television projects’ with Netflix – a downgrade on their previous contract.
The arrangement, revealed this August, is a first-look deal, meaning Netflix can say yes or no to new film or TV projects before anyone else.
And while Ms Treble acknowledged the Duchess has married well, and is still ‘famous’ and ‘rich’, she believes Meghan has to assess how ‘not to repeat’ mistakes.
Among them was an assessment of the Sussexes’ revolving door of publicists, with six key staff in the team cutting ties with them this year alone.
‘Meghan could be famous by being open and real,’ Patricia wrote in the Toronto Star.
‘It worked for the Kardashians, who got rich by working non-stop to sell themselves to a world eager to see their latest reinventions.’
If the Duchess did not want to reveal all, then she could go down a route of celebrity whose exclusivity boosts their popularity, the writer added, noting Princess Catherine of Wales as a prominent example.
‘Meghan wants everyone to know and acknowledge that she’s royal, without the obligations of working on behalf of the monarch, including all those endless engagements for worthy causes,’ Ms Treble added.
In a final blow to the Sussexes, she also laid bare her views on Harry, who she says has ‘done little this year’ beyond the Invictus Games.
The criticism of Meghan and Harry comes shortly after Harry and Meghan’s closest advisor, James Holt quit.
Holt, who had been running the couple’s Archwell charity since 2021, was reported as their ‘rock’ through Megxit’.
He had been their PR chief from 2019 to 2021, a turbulent period for the Sussexes, after they left the UK and stepped back as working Royals.
His departure came just days after Meredith Maines announced she was leaving Team Sussex.
Her tenure as Harry and Meghan’s PR guru is by no means the shortest, despite her lasting in her role as chief communications officer for less than a year.
Remarkably, Mr Holt is the sixth key publicity staff member to cut ties with the couple in 2025 alone.
For some, their time working for Harry and Meghan does not even appear on their LinkedIn profiles, with insiders saying it is an ‘impossible, miserable’ job.
Indeed, some former staff have dubbed themselves the ‘Sussex Survivors Club’.
There was no mention of any difficulty in Mr Holt’s or Ms Maines’s statements when announcing their respective departures.
Harry and Meghan’s representatives declined to comment.
