Meghan Markle is facing criticism for her latest promotional photo.
The Duchess of Sussex recently launched her lifestyle brand, As Ever, as Monsters and Critics previously reported.
As Ever encompasses all the things Meghan loves: “food, gardening, entertaining, thoughtful living, and finding joy in the everyday.”
The 43-year-old has been plugging her curated collection in recent weeks on its Instagram page, @aseverofficial.
Meghan’s latest post was uploaded on Friday, March 21, and included a photo of a multi-layer cake topped with fruit and white icing.
A woman stands over the cake in the image, adding a dollop of honey with a spoon.
The woman’s face and body are obscured in the post, but it’s seemingly implied that the hands shown in the photo belong to Meghan.
Many of Meghan’s posts on her As Ever Instagram account feature up-close peeks of her hands, legs, and feet, suggesting they are those of the Duchess of Sussex.
But Meghan’s critics are convinced that the body parts in her latest photo aren’t hers.
Megha’s critics question the authenticity of her latest photo
The post, captioned, “A berry sweet treat indeed 🍰,” made its way to X (formerly Twitter), where Meghan came under fire for supposedly using either a body double or AI in the photograph.
X user @unreMARKLEble uploaded a screenshot of the As Ever Instagram post and, in the caption, accused Meghan of passing off the cake as her own and possibly not using her own hands in the post.
“I promise you #MeghanMarkle didn’t make this cake,” they wrote. “I’m not even sure that’s her in the photo. Yawn. I swear if she keeps this up her brand is done before it begins. This is boring, basic content.”
More of Meghan’s critics contributed to the conversation, also alleging that the cake in Meghan’s post was not her creation and that the hands in the photos don’t match her “long, bony” ones.
“That is not her, and that is not her cake,” asserted @foster__braxton, who surmised that Meghan hired a chef to make the cake but still took the credit.
Another critic wrote, “It is that we all know the content is fake.”
A third commenter declared that the “normal” fingers in the photo aren’t Meghan’s since hers are “very long, bony and strangely bent.”
“The hands aren’t bony enough to be hers,” added the OP.
Bringing up the backlash Meghan recently faced over her “fake waffles,” @saucysueb deduced, “there is no way she made the cake.”
Another X user admitted they weren’t sure the thumb or fingernails in the photo matched Meghan’s.
Someone else pondered whether Meghan uses “cryptic” photos to conceal the person’s identity, referring to her content as “so fake and contrived.”
Along with a close-up shot of the hand from the As Ever Instagram post, @76Awy asked, “What’s going on here?” and was convinced the photo was AI.
Many of Meghan’s images on As Ever are obscured
As Meghan’s fans and critics know, she and Prince Harry prefer to keep their children, Princess Lilibet and Prince Archie, out of the limelight—so could Meghan be following the same pattern with her “cryptic” photos?
Of Meghan’s eight posts on @aseverofficial, half of them feature portions of body parts, which, again, subtly suggest they belong to her.
Her very first post on the page was an announcement that As Ever was launching this spring.
The photo included a woman, understood to be Meghan, drizzling honey on a plate of biscuits on an outdoor table as her dog looked on.
In her captain, Meghan wrote, “You’re warmly invited: As ever, coming Spring 2025.”
On March 19, Meghan shared a photo of herself (we assume) slicing some strawberries on a cutting board. Again, only her hands were visible in the photo.
Then, on the first day of spring, Meghan shared a photo of a woman carrying a basket full of flowers as she stopped in the grass for a photo.
The slender woman in the snap wore jeans and slip-on sandals, and although it wasn’t stated that Meghan posed for the photo, nor was she tagged in it, most would agree she is the one appearing in As Ever’s photos.
But, amid the recent skepticism on social media, it appears that’s now up for debate.