The couple stepped down as working royals in January 2020, moved to Meghan's native Southern California and launched Archewell Inc., a Beverly Hills-based mix of for-profit and not-for-profit (charitable) business organizations.

[61] The announcement was greeted with enthusiasm by the British media and prompted generally positive comments about a mixed-race person as a member of the royal family,[62] especially in regard to Commonwealth countries.

[76][77] The Crown Estate refurbished the cottage at a cost of £2.4 million, paid out of the Sovereign Grant, with the Duke later reimbursing expenses beyond restoration and ordinary maintenance, a part of which was offset against rental payments that were due at the time.

[94] In October 2021, she penned an open letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, advocating for paid leave for parents.

[95] Her remarks were met by backlash from Republican representatives Jason Smith and Lisa McClain, who found her statement "out of touch" and criticized her interference with American politics while utilizing her British royal titles.

[123] In January 2020, Meghan and Harry returned to the UK from a vacation in Canada and announced that they were stepping back from their role as senior members of the royal family and would balance their time between the United Kingdom and North America.

[124][125] A statement released by the Palace confirmed that the Duke and Duchess were to cease to undertake royal duties as representatives of the Queen and would therefore no longer receive the relevant financial support.

Meghan's final public solo engagement as a senior royal was a visit to Robert Clack School on March 7, 2020, in Dagenham ahead of International Women's Day.

[129] On September 8, 2022, while Meghan and Harry were in London preparing to attend a charity event, Queen Elizabeth II died at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, and they remained in the United Kingdom for her funeral.

[131] In summer 2019, before announcing their decision to step down in January 2020, Meghan and her husband were involved in talks with Jeffrey Katzenberg, the founder of the now-defunct streaming platform Quibi, over a possible role in the service without gaining personal profits, but they eventually decided against joining the project.

[166][167] Later in August, it was revealed that she had invested in the handbag brand Cesta Collective, which sold handwoven basket bags prepared by a group of women in Rwanda that were then completed in Italy.

[184] In August 2020, Meghan used proceeds from the cookbook to donate £8,000 to the UK charity Migrateful, which supports refugees, asylum seekers and migrants by helping them organize cookery classes.

[190] In April 2021, the couple were announced as campaign chairs for Vax Live: The Concert to Reunite the World, an event organized by Global Citizen to increase access to COVID-19 vaccinations.

[195] In October 2021 and ahead of the 2021 G20 Rome summit, the couple penned an open letter together with the Director-General of the World Health Organization Tedros Adhanom, asking the G20 leaders to expedite efforts for the global distribution of COVID-19 vaccines.

[198] In October 2022, Meghan and Harry were named as Ripple of Hope Award laureates for their work on racial justice, mental health and other social initiatives through their foundation Archewell.

[230][231] In 2016, she hosted USA Network's video series Power Lunch with Meghan Markle in collaboration with Lexus and Eater, discussing the culinary inspirations of five different New York kitchens.

[249] There was controversy over her claim in the interview that she had been told at the premiere of The Lion King that her marriage resulted in rejoicing in South Africa similar to that seen at Nelson Mandela's release from prison in 1990.

[266] Following Meghan and Harry's trip to Nigeria in May 2024, Lucia Stein of the ABC argued that the couple could have been used by the royal family, and added that "perhaps how helpful they would have been" had an agreement on a "hybrid working model" been achieved.

"[268] In November 2016, the MailOnline was criticized for running an article on Markle's family background titled "(Almost) Straight Outta Compton", which triggered a response from Prince Harry's Communications Secretary.

[275] In February 2021, the High Court of Justice found in a summary judgment that ANL's Mail on Sunday had invaded Meghan's privacy by publishing the letter,[276] and she won her claim for "misuse of private information and copyright infringement" in May 2021.

[285] She also stated in her witness statement that she was "unable to retrieve any text messages with Mr Knauf" due to "an automatic deletion system" that had been installed on her devices in 2016 for security reasons.

[287] In the same month, ANL's The Mail on Sunday and MailOnline published a front-page statement on Boxing Day acknowledging Meghan's victory, adding that there had been an agreement on "financial remedies".

[290] In February 2018, a letter containing white powder and a racist note addressing Markle was sent to St James's Palace, triggering counter-terrorism and hate crime investigations by Scotland Yard.

[307] In March 2022, Meghan's half-sister, Samantha Markle, filed a defamation lawsuit against her in Florida, accusing her of lying in the Oprah interview and disseminating false statements via her communications secretary for the book Finding Freedom and sought damages in excess of $75,000.

[317] Between December 2022 and January 2023, more than 25,000 complaints were submitted to the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) about a column by Jeremy Clarkson in The Sun,[318] in which he stated that he hated Meghan "on a cellular level" and dreamed "of the day when she is made to parade naked through the streets of every town in Britain while the crowds chant, 'Shame!'

[329][330] Criticism of Meghan for twice wearing earrings gifted from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in 2018, after he was accused of complicity in the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, appeared at the same time.

[336] In an updated epilogue for the couple's unauthorized biography, Finding Freedom by Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand, the authors claimed that "two of the individuals mentioned in [Knauf's] email asked for any allegations made to HR about their experiences with Meghan to be rescinded".

[342] In March 2019, the royal family introduced new rules for followers commenting on its official social media accounts in response to the online abuse aimed at Meghan and her sister-in-law Catherine.

[344] In October 2021, Twitter analytics service Bot Sentinel released their analysis of more than 114,000 tweets about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, as a result of which they found 83 accounts with a combined number of 187,631 followers that were possibly responsible for approximately 70% of the negative content posted about the couple.

[361][362][363][364] During Meghan's trip to Nigeria in May 2024, Igwe Alfred Achebe, the Obi of Onitsha, and Oba Abdulrosheed Akanbi, the Oluwo of Iwo, gave her the chieftaincy titles Ada Mazi (transl.