Holly Willoughby responds to Meghan Markle comparisons after new show panned

Holly Willoughby has offered a surprising response to viewers comparing her new YouTube series to Meghan Markle’s Netflix show.

Last month, the former This Morning presenter made her return to the screens with Holly Willoughby Together, a new YouTube lifestyle series with episodes uploaded twice a week.

In each episode, Willoughby, 45, spends time with a celebrity or otherwise notable guest, leading to comparisons between her show and Markle’s critically panned Netflix lifestyle series With Love, Meghan.

But in a new interview with The Times, mother-of-three Willoughby admitted that she didn’t mind the comparisons to Markle’s show.

“I know it got an absolute hammering, but I actually really enjoyed her show,” she said.

Arriving on Netflix in March 2025, With Love, Meghan was met with poor reviews from critics, with The Independent’s Katie Rosseinsky calling the series “queasy and exhausting”.

The show returned for a second season, but the recent end of the partnership between Markle’s lifestyle brand As Ever and Netflix’s consumer products division has led to reports that the Sussexes deal with the streamer writ large could be in trouble.

When the first episode of Holly Willoughby Together dropped, featuring the British presenter cooking pasta with Hollywood star Stanley Tucci, viewers were quick to equate the series with Markle’s.

In a slightly more generous two-star review of Willoughby’s series, The Independent’s Annabel Nugent pointed out the similarities between the two shows.

“Say what you want about Meghan Markle, but she never subjected us to a dramatic reading of the ingredients in a Fray Bentos steak and kidney pie – which is precisely what occurs around the 34-minute mark,” she wrote. “But the Duchess of Sussex’s series is a fair point of comparison.

“Like With Love, Meghan, Together is a lifestyle show whose main (only?) selling point is the very famous woman at its centre. Where Willoughby has the edge on her American counterpart, though, is her natural charm – something that takes no effort on her part, and in fact flows freely in the moments of Together when she’s not so focused on doing things differently for the sake of a rebrand.”

The latest episode of the series was released on Friday (7 August), and featured Irish comic Joanne McNally.

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