Meghan and Harry’s New Photos With Ted Sarandos and Nicole Avant Just Humiliated the Sussex Haters

Well, well, well. Just weeks after certain corners of the media insisted that Netflix was done with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, and that Ted Sarandos would not go near Meghan Sussex without a lawyer nearby, what do we get? Nothing dramatic at all. Just Prince Harry and Meghan smiling alongside the Netflix co-CEO and his wife at a Montecito soirée, with Meghan and Nicole Avant looking especially friendly.

The soirée in question was Netflix’s BEEF Season 2 Montecito Tastemakers event on April 10. Other guests reportedly included Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, Charles Melton, Justin Trudeau, Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom. So no, this was not exactly a hostage situation. It was a very public, very social Montecito gathering, and the photographs rather deliciously rebuke the recent media fantasy that Netflix wanted the Sussexes kept at arm’s length.

A note on that dress

Before going too deep into the media takedown portion of this program, can we talk about the chartreuse? Because Meghan looks fantastic. That Heidi Merrick dress is tiered, sleeveless, and the perfect pop of color against the stone wall backdrop. Ted looks like he’s genuinely enjoying himself. This is not the body language of people beefing in Hollywood.

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Where Are the Lawyers?

Someone, please check on Matt Donnelly over at Variety. Only last month, he served up what was meant to be the definitive “Hollywood is done with the Sussexes” obituary. It rested on six supposedly well-placed sources, a Netflix insider declaring, “The mood in the building is ‘We’re done,’” and the particularly dramatic claim that Ted Sarandos did not want to see Meghan without his attorney present.

And yet here we are, staring at a photograph of Meghan Sussex and Nicole Avant, the former U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas, Ted’s wife, hugging each other. Not “keeping a strategic six feet distance.” Not “avoiding eye contact while lawyers mediate.” Literally a warm embrace, smiling like neighbours who actually enjoy each other’s company.

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The Netflix fallout story was always a little too neat

That is what makes the March narrative look so overcooked. Variety gave us the grand industry version: the Sussexes were struggling, Netflix was frustrated, and the partnership had cooled into something bordering on embarrassment. Then the usual echo chamber kicked in. The Mirror, Sky News and the Daily Mail pushed social-media stories about Ted Sarandos supposedly unfollowing Meghan and her As Ever brand on Instagram, treating it as if it were the corporate equivalent of filing for divorce.

The implication was obvious. Netflix was finished. The relationship had hit a “new low.” There was “no coming back.” Except Netflix itself pushed back at the time. Its spokesperson called parts of the reporting “absolutely inaccurate,” and Bela Bajaria publicly said people should not believe everything they read and that projects with Harry and Meghan were still in development. That should have tempered the hysteria, but of course it did not, because hysteria was the point.

And now there are the photographs. Simple, inconvenient photographs that make all of that drama look rather silly but disturbing.

The media cannot quit this narrative

That is the real story here. The media remains so attached to the “Harry and Meghan are finished in Hollywood” script that it keeps trying to will it into existence, even when reality refuses to cooperate. A neighbourly Montecito gathering becomes impossible to reconcile with the idea of total estrangement, so the facts must be squeezed until they fit the preferred narrative. An alleged Instagram unfollow becomes a diplomatic incident. A normal business recalibration becomes social banishment. A smiling photo becomes somehow meaningless unless it supports the anti-Sussex line.

But the evidence in front of us is what it is. Meghan and Nicole Avant look warm and affectionate. Harry and Ted Sarandos look relaxed. Everyone appears perfectly happy to be there. That does not look like a relationship in deep freeze. It looks like people are attending a local Netflix event and enjoying one another’s company.

So yes, someone should probably check on Variety. Because the room they described last month and the one visible in these photographs do not appear to be the same room at all. Either the reporting was dramatically overstated, or this moment does not fit the tidy version of events we were sold. Given that we now have visual evidence of very friendly relations, I know which explanation looks more convincing.

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