Royal | News - Prince Ricardo De La Cerda
Sky News host Rita Panahi stunned viewers this week when she weighed in on Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex’s latest filming project with Netflix before branding the show “bloody awful” live on air.
The Australian commentator made little effort to disguise her feelings for the project during a segment highlighting the Duchess’ upcoming cooking show, which recently finished filming just a few miles from the California home Meghan shares with husband Prince Harry.
Although the show has yet to receive a title or air date, the show will reportedly “celebrate the joys of cooking, gardening, entertaining, and friendship” – but it appears not everyone is a fan of the concept, with Ms.Panahi in particular scathingly commenting about it during a broadcast with entertainment and royal reporter Kinsey Schofield.
“Meghan Markle has just wrapped up filming on a new cooking and home show for Netflix, a show which has yet to receive a formal title or air date, as part of the Sussexes $100million deal and was filmed at a property near their Montecito mansion in Los Angeles,” began Rita.
“It’s apparently going to focus on the joys of cooking, gardening, entertaining and friendship – and I’ve gotta say, it sounds bloody awful.”
She then directed a question to her fellow reporter, as she quizzed Kinsey: “Will you be hate watching this, so I don’t have to?”
Stunned into a moment of silence, Kinsey then also jumped aboard the bandwagon and added: “I was looking forward to a recap, but if I have to be the one to take the hit I’ll do it. Yeah, you’re exactly right.”
Kinsey then went on to highlight the importance of the upcoming project as she explained: “It’s crucial that this is a success, Rita, as you know, Harry and Meghan’s only commercial hit so far has been their Harry & Meghan docuseries, which was basically just hours and hours of them ripping into the British royal family.”
The reporter then continued: “They’ve released Live to Lead, which was an absolute flop. Next up, was Heart of Invictus – no-one tuned in, so it’s very important that Meghan’s show, or Harry’s polo programme sees similar numbers to their Harry & Meghan docuseries or they risk losing that Netflix gig.”
Yet even before Kinsey had finished her commentary about the Sussexes slate of work so far, Rita could audibly be heard laughing in the background at the long list of failed projects so far.
“I can’t see the polo project working out,” admitted Rita, as she slammed the royals and their efforts on screen so far.
She then bluntly added : “And the one thing that has worked was awful! It was a reality series, it wasn’t a documentary, it was a boring reality series.”
Refusing to mince her words, Rita doubled down on her criticism, as she went on to ridicule the Netflix documentary, saying: “It was a poor man’s Keeping Up With the Kardashians. I had to watch that. I had to take one for the team and I don’t want to ever have to do that again.”