LIZ JONES: Hidden detail in Meghan’s As Ever launch that everyone’s missed… and I believe is her most contrived move yet

Another day, another video of Meghan in a bucolic garden, doubtless not her own, feigning authenticity.

In her latest post on Instagram she announces, with barely bated breath, the new name for her long-awaited commercial brand.

It is – and I almost expected a drum roll – ‘As Ever’.

Right. I’m tempted to say, ‘Whatever’.

The Duchess of Sussex tells us the cat is out of the bag, finally. She wants to give us the new name herself, rather than let it be leaked.

Meghan wants to explain that her brand of, as they used to say on Ab Fab, ‘lots of lovely things, darling’, is to be called As Ever because – and these are words said with a straight face and toothy smile that could restore Antarctica to its pristine pre-human state – ‘It means, “As it has always been”.’

Perhaps. But as she says in the small print on every single piece of marketing, her brand was only ‘Est 2024’.

The words ‘As Ever’ exude warmth. A personal touch normally used to conclude a personal letter. There’s a casual tone to the phrase, intimacy without gushing or trying too hard.

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

Meghan announced that she has rebranded American Riviera Orchard as As Ever in an Instagram video

None of those qualities spring to mind when talking about Meghan. The new name replaces the tongue-twisting American Riviera Orchard, which she now tells us she found too restricting, meaning she could use only local produce and local artisans. A shame.

She’d also found she couldn’t, in fact, use the name so easily because American Riviera Orchard had already been trademarked elsewhere.

The Duchess mentions that Netflix is behind both her new television show, which airs in two weeks’ time (it’s called With Love, Meghan – do keep up) and her new business.

At this point, she attempts an expression of amazement, suggests that she is deeply humbled by the association with the streaming giant and whispers conspiratorially, ‘This is HUGE,’ barely able to keep the dollar signs from those big brown eyes.

Remember her performing the deep, mocking curtsey on the last series she filmed with Netflix?

Well, she is certainly happy to bow down once again – in deference and gratitude to her corporate king.

I can’t myself imagine the brand will succeed, given its chaotic birth… the jam… the dog biscuits.

We can’t even be sure about the name because the trademark for As Ever is still pending.

The Duchess used the sign-off, and now her brand name, in a Valentine’s Day message to her husband last week

We learn that Meghan will be selling things she uses in her house, but that gives her quite some scope. There are few, if any, details.

Not that it will stop the rest of us tuning in when With Love, Meghan finally airs next month.

I imagine millions will be glued, open-mouthed, honking with laughter, eager to rubber neck at yet more car-crash television.

In her Instagram post, Meghan says she has always loved to bake, craft and garden, that she is only really returning to the days of The Tig (the blog she ran before she blew up the Royal Family and shattered our expectations for a more modern, diverse, fun, animal-loving ruling class).

I doubt she will get her own hands very dirty.

True, she wears jeans and a simple white linen shirt in the new video, and not the ballgown she chose for a trailer promoting the Netflix show.

But even this homey outfit seems carefully contrived, as with so much else.

Most grating of all is Meghan’s signature on that very public Valentine’s Day note to Harry: ‘As Ever, M.’

A genuine, heartfelt message? Or a less-than-subtle advertisement for a new commercial venture, a stunt she’d kept up her sleeve all along?

No opportunity goes begging, it seems, when it comes to making money.