Within hours of the March release of With Love, Meghan, the British press was in a weeks-long howling meltdown, screaming and crying about every little thing about the Duchess of Sussex’s sweet little cooking/entertaining show. They trashed every single part of the show and they’re still trying to say that the show was unpopular/terrible. Well, just days after WLM was released, a British chef named Jameson Stocks ran to GB News and lied his ass off. He claimed that he was approached by Netflix to “consult” on an unnamed show, but he rejected the offer because he sensed that it was Meghan’s show. He spent the rest of the GB News interview mocking and disparaging everything about Meghan and WLM. Soon after, unnamed “Archewell sources” told various outlets that Stocks was lying about the consultation offer. I thought it was a mistake for Archewell and Netflix to not go on the record at the time. As it turns out, Netflix sent Stocks what amounts to a “shut your lying pie hole” cease-and-desist. That’s what Stocks revealed to the Daily Mail’s Richard Eden:
… Now Jameson Stocks – anointed by White as Britain’s next culinary star – is learning that life is full of other hazards, among them letters threatening legal action. Such, he tells me, has been his reward for denouncing Meghan Markle’s Netflix show, With Love, Meghan, as ‘forced and fake’ and ‘painful to watch’.
‘I got a lawyer’s letter from Netflix after I spoke out against her, warning me,’ says Stocks, whose life story so gripped Brad Pitt that he snapped up the rights to turn it into a movie. Stocks had advised Meghan to steer clear of the kitchen and ‘go back to acting’, describing her as ‘quite a good actress’, and insisting that ‘people should stick to what they do best’.
‘I proper p**sed them off. Netflix did not like it and came after me,’ adds Stocks, characterising the legal letter as ‘a load of nonsense’. If intended to silence him, the missive has abjectly failed. ‘I am not taking any notice,’ Stocks assures me.
‘How can she get all this money from Netflix? I don’t think she can cook and I don’t think she should be teaching people to cook either. What would I cook for her? I would cook something she has done on her TV programme but cook it properly.’
That, alas, seems unlikely, especially now that Stocks has given me his assessment of Meghan’s lifestyle brand, As Ever. He says: ‘Her jam sold out in minutes. I think they probably only had about ten of each product.’ Stocks, who acknowledges that he doesn’t make his own, adds: ‘I know Lidl do jam for about £15 cheaper.’
A Netflix spokesman declined requests for comment.
Stocks previously claimed to have rejected an offer to work on With Love, Meghan because he feared being ‘slammed for being a part of’ a ‘forced and fake’ show. The chef believes that he made the right choice, blasting the show as ‘terrible and painful’ to watch – although sources said Stocks was in fact not invited to participate.
But since attacking the show in a GB News interview, Stocks said he ‘started getting death threats and all sorts of nasty messages’. Stocks said he had received ‘hundreds and hundreds’ of hateful messages, adding: ‘I’m just a single dad, and then all of a sudden, I’m getting death threats on me.’
He also insisted that he has ‘nothing against Meghan Markle’, explaining: ‘I never personally attacked Meghan. I never once did that. I never would do that. I have absolutely zero interest in anything to try and bring her down. My only thing was I didn’t like the show and that was it. It wouldn’t matter if it was Gordon Ramsay, Wolfgang Puck or Donald Duck. I just didn’t like the programme.’
Notice he doesn’t repeat his earlier claim that he was approached by Netflix to consult on the show. That, more than anything else, was why he was sent a cease-and-desist or some kind of legal notice – because he was making false claims about a Netflix property. He was lying about being approached by Netflix and the WLM production. He wasn’t just innocently saying “WLM isn’t for me.” He was misrepresenting and hate-mongering to get attention. While I’m glad that Netflix sent him a legal notice, I still say that they should have done more to push back on his obvious lies at the time. Stocks’ dumb and defamatory statements made global news back in March.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Netflix.
