Will Netflix pull Meghan’s new California life-style present? PR and royal specialists query timing of actuality sequence launch amid LA wildfires

PR experts have questioned the timing of the release of Meghan Markle‘s Netflix cookery show and say it should be postponed amid the wildfires in Los Angeles. 

The Duchess of Sussex’s long-awaited lifestyle series With Love, Meghan is scheduled to premiere on Wednesday, January 15. 

The first trailer showed Meghan, 43, cooking in a Montecito kitchen, picking produce from her garden, and chatting with her very famous pals. 

The new series is part of the Sussexes $100 million (£80 million) deal with the streaming giant but it comes amid the grim backdrop of the raging fires that have swept through LA. 

So far 16 people have died with US President Joe Biden making the terrifying prediction the death toll will rise further in infernos he has likened to a ‘war zone’. 

Harry, 40, and Meghan were this week seen in the city helping hand out food parcels to survivors after making the 90 mile journey from their $29million Montecito mansion.

But despite their laudable efforts, making donations to the cause from their Archewell Foundation, and opening up their luxury home to their displaced friends and loved ones, scores of experts say Netflix should push back the release date of Meghan’s show. 

They suggest to air it now could come across as ‘insensitive’ and ‘tone deaf’ and could cause a fierce backlash against the royal couple. 

UK brand and culture expert Nick Ede pointed to the decision to cancel or delay dozens of Hollywood premieres and awards ceremonies.

He told MailOnline: ‘I think Netflix bosses will be having to make some big decisions as whether to air ‘With Love, Meghan’ in the next week.

‘With the show being so centred on California life, Los Angeles and Montecito, providing a glimpse into aspirational and inspirational living, I suspect it will be pulled from its current schedule and delayed for at least a few months.’

The PR guru said it would be a ‘positive move’ for both Meghan and Netflix ‘as to air it during such a tragic and difficult time would come across as insensitive and tone deaf’.

‘A show like Meghan’s isn’t time sensitive so it means it can be aired later down the line, we know how important the community is to both Meghan and Harry and the last thing they would want would be a backlash due to the show airing when they are currently going above and beyond to support those in need at this time,’ he said. 

Phil Dampier, the author of Royally Suited: Harry and Meghan In Their Own Words, echoed Mr Ede’s warning saying ‘the timing of Meghan’s Netflix show could hardly be worse as hundreds of people have lost their homes in the terrible fires’. 

‘The last thing anyone is interested in is a programme about having friends round to eat canapés or arrange flowers when the city is going up in flames and people have lost everything.’ he told MailOnline. 

‘Harry and Meghan did the right thing by saying they would help friends and put them up in their own home, but the trouble is that they can’t really win. Some will say they are just doing it as a PR move. 

‘I think it would be sensible for Netflix to pull the show and bring it back in the summer when things are a bit better but the devastation is so bad that it will take years if nor decades to rebuild some of the communities.

‘Harry and Meghan are going to be living a short distance from the destruction for a very long time and the recovery will require people coming together for many years. 

‘It’s not Meghan’s fault, of course, but I can’t see this show being a success in the current climate. 

‘Some critics had already panned it and now it just looks totally out of place. She had a lot riding on it and had been planning for months, if not a couple of years, so it’s very unfortunate for her. 

‘It was the last roll of the dice as far as Netflix was concerned and if it doesn’t fly I can’t see them wanting anymore programmes from them. She has been unlucky but her problems are nothing compared to those who have suffered in the fires.’

Mr Dampier thinks Netflix ‘will probably want to carry on with the show but Meghan would be wise to ask them to postpone it’.

‘It just looks so bad for her to go ahead with it and no one will be watching in LA,’ he said.   

Royal expert Richard Fitzwilliams said the series ‘must be postponed’ or risk showing the Sussexes as being ‘out of touch’. 

He said: ‘To proceed now would be crazy as the mood has darkened. These horrific fires are amongst the worst of America’s natural disasters. 

‘If the series did proceed it would show the Sussexes as totally out of touch. Obviously, they had no idea this would happen, but it is essential for their image that they avoid such terrible optics.

‘Five days later [after the series launch] Donald Trump becomes President. No one is more controversial and this marks the most remarkable political comeback in American history. 

‘The mood among the Sussexes supporters will be grim and I doubt that many would have felt receptive to the pabulum which is offered up as she cooks for the luvvies at this time either.’

Mr Fitzwilliams said there is a lot resting on the success of Meghan’s new show with it coming back on the failure of the couple’s recent series Polo. 

But although he says their contract with Netflix may be on the line, ‘it really is a case of Netflix making an immediate decision to postpone’. 

‘As the reasons are obvious, it should be done now and this would be an opportunity for Meghan to issue a statement as to why, which everyone would understand,’ he said.

‘It isn’t difficult to imagine the consequences for their reputation in America and the truly ghastly optics if they don’t.’

Former BBC Royal Correspondent Michael Cole, who now runs his own PR firm, said timing is crucial and ‘this is precisely the wrong time for Meghan to be launching her new cookery show’. 

He told MailOnline: ‘Just down the road from the multi-million dollar residence where the show has been recorded, there are thousands of people without a kitchen or the house in which it had been the heart of their home.

‘The greatest disaster to hit Los Angeles short of an earthquake along the notoriously unstable San Andreas Fault, has shaken the city far more than the regular tremors that is part of living in Southern California.

‘Whether personally affected or not, all Angelenos are feeling the impact of the disaster and will not be interested in yet another celebrity cooking show, even one displaying the culinary skills, ingenuity and general loveliness of a royal duchess.’

Mr Cole says Meghan and Harry helping survivors of the wildfires was ‘a good move’ and he was ‘sure they were motivated by feelings of common humanity, sincerely wanting to do something to help, even if only offering sympathy and encouragement’. 

‘An even more effective gesture would be to announce, in light of the disaster that has robbed so many people of everything they cherished, the launch of the cookery show would be postponed so that the focus of California and the nation should be solely on bringing relief and renewed hope, because it is not just stars and the rich who have lost their homes,’ he said.

‘If the launch goes ahead as planned, it will open up Meghan to the accusation of insensitivity at the very least and that is a charge she has had to combat in the past, not always successfully.

‘The Sussexes have not been short of PR advisors since they settled in California and I am certain they will have been urging Meghan to delay.’

MailOnline has approached representatives for Harry and Meghan for comment.  

Netflix declined to comment when approached by MailOnline.