Yesterday, I wondered aloud about a potential cosmetics/beauty brand ambassadorship for the Duchess of Sussex. I listed some of my reasons for wondering if Meghan would soon announce a collaboration or ambassadorship: she shut down her ShopMy page (potentially indicating that she’s about to be paid to represent one company); some weird sponcon coverage of what makeup she used for recent appearances; and what Meghan said herself at the Fortune summit, where she definitely sounded like she was trying to edit what’s on her plate, not launch her own beauty line. Well, I forgot to mention another wrinkle: Meghan’s longtime friend and makeup artist Daniel Martin posted a social media video in which he explained some of the makeup he has been using on Meghan recently. Daniel deleted the video soon after. Which I’m adding to the pile of “maybe Meghan is about to get paid big money to front an existing beauty company.” But for the Mail’s Richard Eden, Daniel’s video deletion is evidence that Daniel and Meghan are on the outs! Please, Archie and Lili call him Uncle Daniel.
Daniel Martin has become such a good friend of the Duchess of Sussex that he made repeated appearance on her lifestyle show With Love, Meghan. It has left some critics bemused. My colleague Jan Moir, for example, described the American make-up artist as ‘charisma-free’, saying of Martin’s starring role in the second series of the Netflix show: ‘Here he chops vegetables, repeats everything Meghan says and makes too many references to his diminutive size. “This is too small for my big manly hands,” he notes. “Mine is small and mighty,” he says of his flower creation. One can see Meghan’s malignant influence as the show’s executive producer here, because in the real world, any television executive worth their salt flakes would have said “for God’s sake, lose the weird bald guy”. Yet here is Daniel again, prowling around the kitchen like a damp pink blancmange, a pal whose friendship with Meghan does not make him interesting.’
Now, Martin, 52, has discovered that however close you are to the American former actress, and however much you lavish praise on her domestic skills on camera, you are never far from disaster.
Last week, he posted a video on social media about his trip to France with Meghan. In it he explained how he had achieved her look for the Balenciaga show at Paris Fashion Week, which the duchess had asked to attend in support of the brand’s latest creative director, Pierpaolo Piccioli. Martin claimed that his work had ‘made her look even more juicy and glowy’.
He said: ‘We just wanted to keep everything light, fresh, and radiant. She just flew in, and your skin gets dehydrated from the plane, so I just wanted to bring some hydration back into her skin and just bring some life to it.’ He then concluded: ‘I would love to get her in a lip [lipstick] one day, Meghan if you’re watching this, let’s do a lip, I’d love to see you in a lip.’
However, earlier this week Martin deleted the post, leading to speculation that the duchess may not have been best pleased with what he had said. Martin’s spokesman declined to comment but a source close to Meghan told me on Monday that Martin had removed the video because he had failed to refer to all the beauty products used on the trip. The source suggested that an updated version of the video was likely to be posted at a later date. Three days later, no such video has been posted.
Even if Martin does eventually share an updated video, he will have learnt a valuable lesson: that ‘friendship’ with Meghan involves doing what the duchess wants. Or, as her husband Prince Harry is said to have once put it to Angela Kelly, dresser to his grandmother Queen Elizabeth: ‘What Meghan wants, Meghan gets.’
Martin has been a friend of King Charles’s daughter-in-law since he did her make-up on cable television drama Suits.
Daniel didn’t do Meghan’s makeup ON Suits. They met when she was first on Suits, and he did her makeup for red carpets, upfronts and special events. He has talked about all of this interviews, as has Meghan. While Daniel isn’t the most charismatic person on-screen, I find it charming that Meghan wants to include her friend in her show. It’s not that serious, they’re just cooking and crafting, for goodness sake. As for Eden’s theory that Meghan (lmao) bullied Daniel into taking down his video… yeah, I’m sticking to my larger theory. I hope it happens soon! I hope it’s big money and an international ad campaign!
Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Netflix and Meghan’s IG.
