Jan Moir recently traveled from London to California to visit Meghan Sussex’s Montecito pop-up shop. The visit resulted in a scathing column about jam jars, mulling spices, and scented candles. But the content of her article wasn’t nearly as revealing as the decision to send her there in the first place. The Daily Mail calls Meghan irrelevant. Yet they dispatched a senior columnist across the Atlantic to photograph gift boxes and insult eucalyptus sprigs. Whatever this was, it wasn’t lifestyle reporting. It was an attempt to humiliate a woman they have been writing about nonstop since 2016.
Moir mocked prices, sniffed at packaging, and linked Meghan’s products to perceived personal failings. She referenced Meghan’s wedding, estrangement from her father, use of royal titles, and her Netflix appearances. The column repeated tabloid talking points dressed up as new observations. The framing relied on spectacle. A single visit became an open invitation to pile on.
The Column Was Not About Retail
Meghan’s As Ever collection includes honeys, teas, fruit spreads, and seasonal kits. It was launched in a curated space within a high-end bookstore in Summerland, a short drive from Montecito. Moir’s article barely described the store. She focused instead on who might be friends with Oprah and whether anyone had bought anything while she was there. She quoted a staff member’s comments on mint-scented candles. The rest was conjecture.
For a piece filed under lifestyle, the text was dominated by sarcasm and resentment. The pop-up’s prices were compared to supermarket staples. The decor was described with disdain. There was no effort to report on sourcing, ingredients, or packaging standards. No interview with the founders or partners. Not even a customer quote. The visit served one purpose: to provide enough detail to mock the setting with plausible distance. Moir delivered commentary masked as critique, with an editorial line already decided before she landed in California.
“Jars of her precious jams are displayed on silver salvers – could everyone please curtsey – there are lush bundles of eucalyptus and foliage in silver vases and even a dummy bottle of As Ever sparkling wine – actually filled with water – displayed in a silver ice bucket.”– Jan Moir, Daily Mail
The Byline Has Always Come With Baggage
This is not the first time Jan Moir has published a piece that felt personal. Her 2009 column on the death of Stephen Gately, published the day before his funeral, described the circumstances of his passing as “less than respectable.” The backlash was immediate. More than 25,000 people filed formal complaints. The article led to advertisers withdrawing placements from the Daily Mail website. The UK’s press regulator described it as one of the most complained-about pieces in British media history.
In the years since, Moir has written headlines that accused Madonna of desperation, suggested jailing the parents of teenage girls, and blamed “black youth culture” for the actions of white British children. Her language often strays into caricature and cruelty, aimed at easy targets. What ties the pieces together is a clear reliance on public humiliation as a device. The article about Meghan’s jam fits into that archive.
Related Stories
There is a Financial Model Behind the Fixation
The British press devotes hundreds of pages each year to Meghan Sussex. The Daily Mail insists Meghan is irrelevant while sending a columnist across the world to inspect her candles. Moir’s article was not just another column. It was a continuation of a business model that sells outrage to an audience already primed to dislike Meghan. The inconsistencies in tone are not accidental. They are central to how the content is made.
Moir did not interview Meghan. She did not purchase anything. She wrote a critique of a woman she did not meet, based on a space she entered once. Her assignment was to mock the presentation of the brand and then link that back to Meghan’s personal life. The method is familiar yet also outdated. What Moir wrote was not investigative, informative, or fair. It was commentary structured around old grudges.
Final Thoughts
Jan Moir’s visit to Montecito did not produce original insight into Meghan’s business. It produced a column that confirmed the British tabloid industry cannot let go. The decision to cover jam as scandal tells us more about the editorial culture at the Daily Mail than it does about Meghan Sussex. The real story isn’t the jam. It’s the obsession behind who gets paid to critique it.
Discover more from Feminegra
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Jan Moir is simply adhering to the implied instructions of the proverb, ” A cat [ malicious gossip? ] may look at a Queen.”
With which eye? This odious specimen posing as a writer–and a human– rather use her talents as a proxy and conduit for an abusive, patriarchal, terrorist institution. Has she reviewed the Highgrove jams with as much zeal and commentary?
Just more proof that hating on meghan is a billion dollar industry. Thankfully meghan is thriving and living her life ignoring these bullies
The whole point is to destroy Meghan’s commercial ventures. They hope this will make her and Harry broke and compliant. They have poisoned the UK public against the Sussexes and now they are taking their war to the US. They will never, ever stop. The future of the monarchy depends on stopping the Sussexes but it’s too little, too late. In spite of their best efforts, they won’t win.
Why do I see in Jan Moir’s eyes a look of uncertainty and in her face a look of envy and dislike?
A prominent Australian barrister described the type of journalism Moir writes as fundamentally corrosive and ought to have no place in academic or public life.” And that it appeals to the mentality of the mob” and is “fundamentally corrosive.”
Jonathan Harmsworth, 4th Viscount Rothermere, owner of the Daily Mail, has a connection to the royal family, primarily through a past friendship with Princess Margaret and attendance at events with the late Queen Elizabeth II and other members of the royal family. The Viscount Rothermere title was created by King George V. He has also been an ambassador for the King’s Trust charity, which the royal family support
Moir is the product of sycophancy. She bends the knee to those who flatter her and writes her distorted and hatefilled narrative to destroy Megham at the expense of decency and principle. She is, in short, a fraud to her readers and a tool in the hands of her employers.