Meghan Markle has finally addressed the controversy surrounding her last name after she insisted that she’s now called ‘Meghan Sussex’. 

During an interview over burgers and beer with Bloomberg’s Emily Chang, aired to promote the second season of her Netflix show today, the Duchess was asked about her true legal name.

At 44, Meghan clarified that her surname is now ‘Sussex’ after correcting Mindy Kaling, a celebrity friend and star of The Office, who called her ‘Meghan Markle’ during the first season of With Love, Meghan.

Her comment ignited a social media stir, as it is believed Meghan has only visited the English county once and does not hold an official surname as a royal member.

Royal fans later insisted that her name is actually Mountbatten-Windsor – of which Meghan made no mention during her interview with Emily. 

Describing the subject as ‘complicated for people to grasp,’ Meghan explained that she, along with husband Prince Harry and their children, Archie, six, and Lilibet, four, ‘roughly, loosely’ use Sussex as their last name.

She then clarified that her official legal name is Meghan, Duchess of Sussex. 

‘Upon marrying, I changed my name, but it’s complicated for people because our last name doesn’t follow the usual construct,’ Meghan told Emily.

She continued: ‘It seems ridiculous to say this considering I went there, and I’m American. Then you return and as an American, you think, “I’m so confused!” But it’s a dukedom.’

‘That’s the truth of it, but at the end of the day, my name is Meghan, Duchess of Sussex. 

‘But Sussex for us works as our family name and it’s the name we share with our children. Since I’ve been married, that’s what I’ve been called.’

When asked what she has learned about herself since ‘becoming Sussex’, Meghan insisted that she has stayed true to herself throughout. 

She said: ‘What I learned about myself is that, no matter what my name is, or what people call me, I’m still the same person. That didn’t really change who I am.’ 

In season one, Mindy seemed to get under Meghan’s skin after referring to her as ‘Markle’ in passing, as she said: ‘I don’t think anyone in the world knows that Meghan Markle has eaten Jack In The Box and loves it.’

Trying to hide her frown with a smile, Meghan replied: ‘It’s so funny you keep saying Meghan Markle, you know I’m Sussex now.’  

As Mindy looked confused, Meghan continued: ‘You have kids and you go “No, I share my name with my children”.

‘I didn’t know how meaningful it would be to me but it just means so much to go “This is OUR family name. Our little family name”.

After being corrected, Mindy awkwardly responded: ‘Well, now I know and I love it.’

The late Queen Elizabeth bestowed the titles of Duke and Duchess of Sussex on Prince Harry and Meghan for their wedding in 2018.

Since then the pair have only visited the county once – for just six hours – when they hosted a number of engagements seven years ago.

Five years ago Harry and Meghan took a step away from their royal duties and moved to California, leading to calls for their titles to be stripped.

Meghan dropped her surname when she married Prince Harry, but as a member of the Royal Family, she now does not officially have one.

Royals conventionally use their titles in place of their surnames, meaning Meghan’s name is officially Meghan, Duchess of Sussex.

Their children Archie and Lilibet were granted Prince and Princess titles following the death of Queen Elizabeth.

Speaking to People Magazine in an interview released back in March, Meghan said: ‘It’s our shared name as a family, and I guess I hadn’t recognised how meaningful that would be to me until we had children.

‘I love that that is something that Archie, Lili, H and I all have together. It means a lot to me.’

She added that the ‘Sussex’ name was part of her and Prince Harry’s ‘love story’.

Elsewhere in her Bloomberg interview, Meghan said she ‘couldn’t be as vocal’ while a working royal and wore clothes that were ‘not very myself’ while promoting the second series of her Netflix show.

Meghan was asked if there is an ‘inherent tension’ between ‘trying to be relatable’ while also being a Duchess. 

Meghan responded that she is ‘just being herself’ before appearing to take a dig at her former life in the royal fold. 

‘It was different several years ago where I couldn’t be as vocal and I had to wear nude pantyhose all the time!’ the Duchess said, adding it ‘felt a little bit inauthentic’. 

Meghan has already touched on things she had to sacrifice in order to be a royal, such as her lifestyle blog The Tig, which she ditched in April 2017, a few months before her engagement to Harry.

She linked the decision to the immense changes that came with joining the institution. 

When relaunching her lifestyle brand As Ever in February, Meghan said: ‘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. 

‘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.’

In 2021, Harry and Meghan stepped back from social media after abuse from online trolls.   

When Emily quizzed Meghan about her current political stance later on in the episode, the Duchess appeared to dodge the question – admitting she hadn’t spoken about it since 2016, before she met Prince Harry. 

Emily referenced Meghan’s appearance on Larry Wilmore’s The Nightly Show in 2016, in which she branded Donald Trump ‘misogynistic’ and ‘divisive’, especially with female voters. 

Speaking about the video, Emily asked if there was anything Meghan was ‘dying to say right now, but you feel like you can’t’ – appearing to ask her current views on US politics. 

But Meghan simply responded ‘no’, before appearing to change the subject: ‘I just make a choice of what matters to me and what’s important to me. And that was a different time in 2016.’

Instead, she spoke about how ‘excited’ she was to be on the show at the time. 

Meghan and Emily ate smash burgers during the candid chat while sipping on pints of beer. 

When Emily asked the former royal her opinion about the direction America is headed in, Meghan again appeared evasive: ‘I think right now it’s an interesting time for the entire world. I just hope that people are able to maintain the values that are important to them and to feel safe. 

‘And to remember our humanity with each other in all of it, no matter how polarised the world can be, you go back to the fact we are human beings and can connect.’

In 2016, an outspoken Meghan slammed Donald Trump as ‘misogynistic’ during a TV interview and threatened to leave America if he became president.

The Suits actress voiced her strong opposition to the now US president while appearing on the Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore on May 4 that year.

Protocol dictates that members of the British Royal family must remain politically impartial.

But since leaving the royal fold, Meghan has not been as vocal about political issues as she had been previously. 

As she and Emily laughed, Meghan said: ‘Let’s be honest, that was not very myself. I hadn’t seen pantyhose since movies in the 80s! That felt a little bit inauthentic.

‘That’s a silly example but it is an example of when you want to dress the way you want to dress and say the things that are true and you’re able to show up in that space really organically and authentically – that’s being comfortable in your own skin. That’s had different chapters in my life.’ 

On Tuesday morning, Meghan revealed she ‘doesn’t like baking’ on the second season of her baking show With Love, Meghan. 

The eight-part series, which launched on Netflix today, features celebrity guests including Chrissy Teigen, John Legend and television personality Tan France. 

The Duchess is seen baking several times throughout the show, preparing sourdough for her friend Teigen and using ready-made puff pastry to create McDonald’s apple pies with France. 

But she admits to chef Christina Tosi: ‘Usually, I don’t like baking because it’s so measured.’ Meghan’s As Ever range launched in March includes ready-made shortbread cookies and crepe mixes with pre-measured amounts. 

Preparing her apple pies, which she claims she used to get from McDonald’s after successful acting auditions, Meghan says: ‘Let’s get our puff pastry ready. We’re going to use pre-made, good puff pastry as opposed to making our dough from scratch.’ 

The Duchess adds later: ‘I love the idea of being able to rethink baking to be just a little more spontaneous.’

Meghan also tells her love story with Harry, revealing it was him who said the ‘L word’ first. She adds that she really understood she was falling in love with ‘H’ on their third date, which was a safari trip to Botswana.

She landed another series despite her last being met with excoriating reviews from critics, who branded it ‘bland’ and ‘toe-curling’.

Meghan also details:  

• The thing she misses most about the UK are the radio stations, ‘Magic FM’ being her favourite. Her new go-to station is ‘Mom Jeans’, which plays vintage soft rock 
• She was ‘not well’ after going almost three weeks without seeing her children
• Lilibet’s favourite colour is pink and Archie is ‘the most tender, sweet child of all time’ 
• She fell in love with Harry on their third date, while camping in Botswana. Harry said ‘I love you’ first 
• Archie and Lilibet have been asking their parents to get them a cat 
• Lilibet, four, asks for chia seeds on her pancakes because they look like ‘freckles’  

In Episode Three of the new season, Meghan tells Queer Eye presenter France how she was left ‘not well’ after spending nearly three weeks away from her children. She didn’t elaborate on dates, but there will be speculation she was referring to when she and Harry unexpectedly remained in the UK due to the death of Queen Elizabeth in 2022. 

The Duke wrote in his memoir Spare of the ‘difficult days’ after the Queen’s death, when he and Meghan were separated from Archie and Lilibet for ‘longer than we’d ever been’. He added that when they reunited in California, ‘for days and days we couldn’t stop hugging the children, couldn’t let them out of our sight’. 

King Charles and the royal family were mourning the loss of Queen Elizabeth in September 2022, against the backdrop of a troubled relationship with Harry and Meghan.

The Duke said later in an ITV interview that there was a ‘really horrible reaction from my family members’ when the Queen died, with ‘the briefings and the leakings and the planting’.

He flew solo to Balmoral, in a last-minute dash to try to see his grandmother before she died, after his brother Prince William ignored his texts – but Meghan remained in Windsor after Charles asked Harry not to bring his wife to Scotland, he claimed in his autobiography.

The Sussexes had left Archie, then three, and one-year-old Lili, in the hands of Meghan’s mother Doria Ragland in LA, after travelling to Manchester for a One World Summit on September 5, 2022, before heading to Dusseldorf for an Invictus event and then returning to London.

They ended up having to extend their stay when Harry’s grandmother died on September 8, staying to make various public appearances including greeting mourners with William and the Princess of Wales at Windsor despite the brothers’ rift, and attending the funeral on September 19. 

In the third episode, Meghan, 44, is also asked by France if there was a moment when she realised that this was the real thing.

‘Yes, that was on our third date,’ she says. ‘We met in Botswana and we camped for five days together. You really get to know each other when you’re in a little tent together and it’s like – what is that outside the tent? That’s an elephant. Are we going to be safe? Yeah, you’re safe. OK.’

France then asks who declared love first, and she reveals: ‘He told me.’ France says: ‘You’re starting to blush,’ and Meghan smiles: ‘She’s still got it.’

In another scene with the fashion designer, France asks what Meghan just put on her French toast, to which the Duchess replies: ‘Flower sprinkles. I love them.’ 

France hesitates and then remarks: ‘Wow. That’s the gayest s*** I’ve seen in a long time.’

The Netflix show, which is streaming from today, was filmed last year in a rented home in Montecito, close to the Sussex’s own mansion.

The first series pulled in 5.3 million views, in the top five per cent of Netflix shows for the first half of 2025. She and Harry signed a five-year contract reported to be worth $100 million with Netflix but that has now been replaced by a first look deal which gives the streaming giant first refusal on any shows they create.

Netflix is also funding the couple’s Archewell Productions company.

One proposal said to have been mentioned among a long list of possibilities is a documentary marking the 30thanniversary of Princess Diana’s death in 2027.

The Sussex’s office this week declined to confirm or deny if that is under consideration.

With Love, Meghan follows the same format as its critically-savaged first series. 

She makes homemade versions of McDonald’s hot apple pies, the American cheese crackers Cheez-Its and salt and vinegar crisps – and serves up beverages such as a ‘lavender grey latte’ made from earl grey tea, lavender, and frothy honey and vanilla milk. 

The Duchess also uses the phrase ‘moving meditation’ twice to refer to methods of creating calm, and tells another guest: ‘I’m thinking about putting each of us in our comfort zone and out of comfort zone. So I thought we’d begin with flower arranging.’

According to Meghan, she cooks breakfast for her both children most days, fried eggs and pancakes.

‘But I like to do surprise pancakes for the kids,’ she revealed during one episode.

‘So I always put some ground flax seeds or some chia seeds in and Lili will ask, ‘can I have my chia seeds? I want to have freckles’.’ 

Although Prince Harry and their children came along to watch filming on a number of days, none of them features in the show in person.

Prince Harry did appear fleetingly in the final episode of series one.

But Meghan opens up about her family a number of times in the lifestyle show, which features cooking, crafting and hosting tips. Archie and Lilibet come up regularly in conversation.

The former actress says that she knew from when she was a girl that she wanted to be a mother. ‘I’d receive my allowance and I’d go to Kmart and buy a real diaper bag. I’d want a real diaper bag to take care of my doll. I always wanted to be mom. I love it. It’s better even than I expected.

‘The longest I went without being around our kids was almost three weeks. I was not well.’

She says that her son Archie, who is sixth in line to the throne, is a gentle boy. ‘He’s like the most tender, sweet child of all time,’ she says. Both children are nagging her for a pet. ‘My kids really want a cat!’ she tells model and TV personality Chrissy Teigen, who turns up with her husband, the singer songwriter John Legend.

Perhaps the most surprising revelation – sitting alongside crafting including making jewellery with dried flowers – is Meghan’s affection for the UK.

The couple quit the country in 2020, and Meghan later talked about having struggled with suicidal thoughts and having no one to help her in her new Royal role. She added that she had her passport taken away after marrying Harry.

She has not set foot in the UK since September 2022, when the couple were on a charity visit and the Queen died. Harry has since said that he believes that the country is unsafe for his wife and children, and also has let it be known that he is never returning to live here from California.

But she seems almost nostalgic when talking about the UK with Tan France. She tells France, who was born in Doncaster: ‘One of the things I miss most about the UK is the radio stations.’ Magic FM was her favourite of them.

Teased that it is a ‘grandma’ stations she says that her new favourite station to listen to in the car is called ‘Mom Jeans’ and plays vintage soft rock.

Their children are being raised with the influence of both cultures. In episode 6, she tells Clare Smyth, the Northern Irish-born three Michelin starred chef who cooked at the couple’s wedding that their children mix British and American pronunciations.

‘My kids, they’ll say a little bit of both but never cooking terms because I guess Papa’s not cooking as much. They both say Zebra though instead of Zeebra.’

Meghan is nostalgic about the meal served at their 2018 wedding, which included braised lamb. She said: ‘Remember we had the map where everything was sourced? We really wanted people to appreciate where every ingredient was coming from. I mean that was the most delicious meal. Everyone still talks about it.’ Meghan says.

Smyth created a special recipe for fried chicken for the after-party at the wedding and tells Meghan: ‘We still do it for only an off-menu item.’ ‘Oh my gosh. I love that we have created something off menu,’ Meghan tells her.

She and her best friend, the make up artist Daniel Martin enjoy a ‘double date’ with Michelin starred chef David Chang and Christina Tosi, chef and cookbook author.

They make caramelised onion tarts for their guests before they arrive – topped with the very small eggs laid by her own silkie chickens. ‘The eggs are so tiny,’ says Meghan. ‘Have you ever seen them? They’re hilarious. They make very small eggs. It’s not as small as a quail egg but they’re tiny. So I thought we could fry a couple of eggs and put them on those bites.’

Meghan creates a headscarf for Christina Tosi and a pocket square for David Chang using a technique called water marbling.

She makes a salad which she calls a ‘love letter’ to California with the Iranian-American chef and food writer Samin Nosrat.

In episode 4 with Nosrat, she recalls having problems with converting cooking temperatures when she and Harry were first dating. ‘I will say when I made a roast chicken for my now husband, I was still having a lot of challenges with the conversion of Celsius and Fahrenheit. I made a horrible chicken that night. I mean, truly terrible,’ she says.

Meghan takes a trip to Malibu to meet her old friend, holiday companion and running partner Heather Dorak, owner of a Pilates studio, and packs a baseball cap emblazoned with PH40. ‘I made these for my husband’s 40th birthday for him and his friends,’ she says.

She gives her old friend Heather thumbprint cookies she has made for her and her children. ‘Her kids are so sweet and we’re so close with them. They’re super close with our kids,’ Meghan says.

She tells Heather: ‘I’ve been putting them in our kids’ lunch boxes for the past week and they’re like, ‘Can we have another thumbprint cookie?’

The pair learn how to make cocktails with mixologist Payman Bahmani-Bailey.

She and Teigen talk about the old days when they were both brief case models on the television game show Deal or No Deal. ‘I was just so happy I got health insurance,’ Meghan says. ‘How far we’ve come.’

She remembers getting nervous auditioning as a young actress. ‘I’d always get blotches on the chest. So then I started auditioning in turtle necks only. I was, like, nothing to see here.’

Meghan reveals that growing up she learned how to cook by watching television and not from either parent. Rachel Ray’s 30 Minute Meals are cited as an inspiration. She lived for an extended period with her father Thomas, a TV lighting director.

Viewers get to see some of Meghan’s own garden – although not her house. There are some shots of hummingbirds flying in her Californian paradise and Meghan talks about how she makes apple sauce and apple butter from the established apple trees in her garden.

She adds: ‘I grow a lot of roses at home. My favourites are Pope John Paul II roses, Koko Lokos – amazing scent – and Just Joeys.’ She makes rose water in episode 2 and jewellery with flower petals. She also makes vegan macaroons, has a try at bookbinding and makes spicy plant-based food.

In the final episode Jose Andres, the Spanish-American chef who founded the charity World Central Kitchen, joins her in creating a sea food paella for the film crew. The meal includes sea urchins and wine from the Santa Ynez Valley in California.