RICHARD EDEN: How I ‘spoiled’ Meghan’s launch – as Palace insiders tell me why they believe it’s behind humiliating U-turn

In March last year, I contacted the Duchess of Sussex to inform her I had obtained the name of the lifestyle company she was then planning to launch, American Riviera Orchard.

As part of our Code of Practice, journalists in Britain are expected to take care over the accuracy of our stories, which often means we notify the subjects of our articles before publication. This gives them the opportunity to comment and to contest anything they feel is inaccurate.

Meghan failed to respond. Instead, she posted a video on a new Instagram account the following day, launching the new brand and confirming its name: American Riviera Orchard.

The glitzy 15-second teaser showed the former actress busying herself with a whisk in a rustic-looking kitchen, arranging a bouquet of white and pink flowers, and posing outdoors in a black dress.

Yet despite the heady excitement of those early days, the company has still to sell a single product. And yesterday, almost a year after its launch, Meghan took to Instagram again to announce that American Riviera Orchard was no more.

As John Cleese said of the dead parrot in the classic Monty Python sketch, the company ‘has ceased to be! It’s expired and gone to meet its maker.’

Instead, the duchess told her followers, the company, when it does finally sell products, will be called: ‘As Ever’.

She explained that this was because of problems registering the name American Riviera Orchard, which is a reference to the expensive area of California where she lives with her husband, the Duke of Sussex, and their young children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet.

Meghan announces that she has rebranded American Riviera Orchard as As Ever on Instagram 

‘Last year, I had thought: “American Riviera”, that sounds like such a great name,’ she said. ‘It’s my neighbourhood; it’s a nickname for Santa Barbara, but it limited me to things that were just manufactured and grown in this area.’

As I have reported over the past year, there have been a string of objections to her attempts to trademark the name American Riviera Orchard.

Last autumn, the US Patent and Trademark Office denied an application regarding the name, explaining that businesses are not allowed to trademark geographic locations.

Even the elaborate logo, which Meghan is said to have designed herself, was dismissed on the grounds it was ‘inaccurate’, since the letter ‘O’ for Orchard was not easily visible.

Yesterday her new logo for As Ever proved immediately troublesome, after internet sleuths noticed how its two hummingbirds on either side of a palm tree bore a remarkable resemblance to the coat of arms of Porreres, a small town in Majorca. The local major has said the town hall will consider whether or not to take legal action.

Typically, Meghan justified the new name, As Ever, with what some have seen as a subtle dig at the Royal Family. King Charles’s daughter-in-law said she had not been able to share her passion for food and home for ‘years’, after she shut her lifestyle blog ‘The Tig’ in 2017. She married Prince Harry the following year.

As Ever is set to offer the same range of products as American Riviera Orchard

Meghan with her daughter Lilibet in the cover photo for her new brand’s website

‘As Ever, essentially, means as it’s always been, and if you’ve followed me since 2014 with The Tig, you know I’ve always loved cooking and crafting and gardening — this is what I do,’ she said.

‘And I haven’t been able to share it with you in the same way for the past few years, but now I can, so, as things are starting to trickle out there, I wanted you to hear it from me first.’

Meghan confirmed that As Ever planned to offer the same range of products as American Riviera Orchard, including her famous ‘fruit preserves’ as she referred to them, reassuring fans that ‘jam is still my jam’.

This week’s embarrassing U-turn over the duchess’s hastily named lifestyle brand has come as little surprise to some of the royal officials who had to work with her after she became engaged to Harry in 2017.

One told me this week: ‘This is further evidence of what we’ve seen time and again with Meghan. She doesn’t like to take advice.

‘I’m sure she would have been advised that it was better not to launch her company until everything had been thought through carefully.’

The source added: ‘Meghan was offered so much advice and support after she moved to Britain, including from the late Queen, but most of it she ignored.’

When Harry and Meghan were still working royals, they were surrounded by a talented and experienced group of courtiers who could always be blamed if things didn’t turn out to the couple’s liking. And that’s exactly what Harry went on to do in his reproachful memoir, Spare.

But now the Sussexes are on their own and will have to own their mistakes, however embarrassing.

• Sign up for Richard Eden’s Royal Newsletter. Click here