A single gossip columnist’s Substack post has now generated at least four separate articles across OK! Magazine, Reality Tea, and Yahoo News, all breathlessly reporting that Jessica Mulroney has been offered $1 million to write a “deeply uncomfortable” tell-all memoir about Meghan Markle. No publisher has been named. No agent has confirmed. No book proposal exists in any verifiable form. But before we get to the sourcing, and we will, let’s ask the question none of these outlets bothered to explore: what, precisely, is there to tell?

A part of me wonders if Kate’s stylist wants to tell all, they always project AND this was reported in the Mirror last year

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor on all fours over an unidentified woman, emails revealing Epstein offered to introduce Andrew to a 26-year-old Russian woman described as “clever, beautiful, and trustworthy,” and correspondence suggesting Andrew may have sent confidential government trade reports to a convicted sex offender. Thames Valley Police opened an assessment. The British Prime Minister suggested Andrew should cooperate with U.S. investigators. William and Kate issued a statement expressing “deep concern.”

And what did the celebrity tabloid ecosystem prioritize? A gossip columnist’s Substack post claiming that Jessica Mulroney, Meghan Markle’s former yoga friend from Toronto, has been offered $1 million for a tell-all memoir.

There’s just one problem: Mulroney already said no. Five months ago.

The Story That Already Died

In September 2025, the Daily Mirror reported that Mulroney had been offered over $1 million for a memoir about her friendship with Meghan, and had declined. The article stated clearly that she told reporters she would “never” spill the beans, and that sources described her as wary of behavior that “could be perceived as being petty and bitter.”

The story was dead on arrival. Mulroney said no. The publishing world moved on.

Or so you’d think. On February 9, 2026, Rob Shuter’s “Naughty But Nice” Substack ran what is presented as an exclusive: “Meghan Markle’s Former Best Friend Offered $1 Million to Tell All in New Book Deal.” The post features the same dollar figure, the same anonymous sourcing structure, and (most revealingly) some of the same language. The September Mirror piece quoted a source saying Mulroney “knows where the bodies are buried.” Shuter’s February post has a source saying “she saw everything” and “she remembers all of it.” The narrative DNA is identical. This is the same story, repackaged as new.

Within hours, Shuter’s Substack post had been laundered through OK! Magazine, Reality Tea, and Yahoo News, each outlet presenting the recycled material as though it were fresh reporting. None of them mentioned the September Mirror article. None of them noted that Mulroney had already publicly declined. None of them asked the obvious question: if she said no five months ago, what changed?

The answer, of course, is nothing. What changed was the news cycle.

What Dropped Today, and What Didn’t Get the Headlines

Let’s be precise about what the world learned on February 9, 2026, about the British royal family.

The DOJ’s Epstein file release included photographs of Andrew at Balmoral with Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell hunting, images of Andrew in the royal box at Ascot with Epstein, and emails from 2010 in which Andrew and Epstein discussed business deals, all months after Epstein’s conviction for soliciting a minor for prostitution. It also included an exchange in which Epstein offered to introduce Andrew to a young Russian woman, to which Andrew reportedly replied he “would be delighted to see her.” Separate documents showed Andrew had emailed Epstein on Christmas Day 2010 with a “homemade family message.”

This is a genuine institutional crisis, documented, evidenced, with law enforcement involvement and government statements. And it directly involves the inner circle of the senior royal family.

Now consider what the tabloid gossip ecosystem chose to surface on the same day: an unverified claim, sourced entirely to anonymous “insiders” via a single gossip columnist’s Substack, about a book deal that the subject already rejected, involving a woman whose most sensitive knowledge is what Meghan Markle was like as a friend during her years on a cable TV show in Toronto.

The asymmetry is the story.

The Original Source: Copywriting Disguised as Journalism

Shuter’s post opens with theatrical stage direction (“Darlings, this is the scenario Meghan Markle has quietly dreaded”) before introducing a parade of anonymous sources delivering lines engineered for extraction:

“Jessica has absolutely nothing left to lose.” “She saw everything.” “Classic Meghan. The moment trouble hits, she detaches. No mess, no mercy.” “If she talks, Meghan won’t like what she hears.”

The curtain line: “Tick. Tick. Tick.”

This isn’t reporting. It’s copywriting. Every quote is short, punchy, emotionally loaded, and perfectly structured for headlines, which is exactly how they were used. OK! Magazine lifted them wholesale. Reality Tea repackaged them. Yahoo syndicated the repackage. Each outlet presented the same quotes as though reporting independently, when in reality they were all drawing from a single Substack post with zero named sources and a subject who already said no.

The one person who went on record, Mulroney’s estranged husband Ben speaking on a podcast, contradicted the entire premise, saying he understood Jessica and Meghan were “on positive terms.” Shuter dismissed this through an anonymous “confidante” calling it “pure fiction.” OK! kept Ben’s quote and then dismissed it. Reality Tea deleted it entirely.

Notice Shuter’s hedging: “Rumored to be worth up to $1 million.” “If she’s willing to say it all.” “Whether Jessica signs remains to be seen.” Every claim has a built-in escape hatch. The post commits to nothing while implying everything, which allows downstream outlets to harden the hedged language into declarative headlines like “Jessica Mulroney Offered $1 Million for Tell-All Memoir.”

The Projection Machine

No one is offering Kate’s stylist a $1 million book deal. No one is courting Kate’s university friends for a tell-all. No gossip columnist is running breathless Substack posts about whether Kate’s inner circle might reveal what they “saw” during the years Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was socializing with Jeffrey Epstein, emailing a convicted sex offender on Christmas morning, or allegedly sharing confidential government documents with a man who trafficked minors.

Kate’s associates are not being publicly pressured to betray her confidence, even though the scandal engulfing her family involves documented evidence, law enforcement investigation, and matters of genuine public interest including potential national security implications.

Instead, the tell-all industrial complex targets Meghan’s former friend, a woman whose inside knowledge consists of attending yoga classes, vacations, baby showers, and a royal wedding alongside an actress-turned-duchess.

The contrast exposes the function: the tabloid ecosystem doesn’t manufacture tell-alls based on the severity of what’s being concealed. It manufactures them based on who the target is. The suggestion that Meghan has dark secrets worth a $1 million exposé, published on the same day actual dark secrets about the royal family are being released, is projection operating at industrial scale.

The Racial Context That Keeps Disappearing

Every article in this cycle either minimizes or erases the reason the Mulroney-Markle friendship ended. In June 2020, amid global Black Lives Matter protests, Black fashion influencer Sasha Exeter publicly shared that Mulroney had sent her threatening messages after Exeter posted a general call for white influencers to use their platforms to speak about racial injustice. Mulroney’s messages included what Exeter described as threats to contact her brand partners and damage her livelihood.

This wasn’t a vague “feud.” It was a documented incident involving a white woman threatening a Black woman’s career during a global racial reckoning. Meghan, a biracial woman who has spoken extensively about experiencing racism within the royal institution, distanced herself from Mulroney after the controversy.

In the current cycle, this is reduced to “a controversy involving fashion influencer Sasha Exeter” (Shuter), “a feud with fashion influencer Sasha Exeter” (OK!), Mulroney’s “supposed feud” (Reality Tea), or, in the September Mirror piece, Mulroney having “gave views on Black Lives Matter, which soured their friendship.” That last framing is particularly insidious: it positions Mulroney as someone who merely expressed an opinion rather than someone who threatened a Black woman’s livelihood.

The word “race” does not appear in any version. The word “Black” does not appear in any version except to name the movement itself. The erasure is structural: if the audience understands why Meghan ended the friendship, the tell-all narrative loses its power. The story only works if Meghan is cast as someone who callously discards people, not as someone who made a principled decision. So the racial context has to go.

The Comment Section: Where the Quiet Part Gets Loud

If Shuter’s post is the carefully worded performance, his comment section reveals exactly who this content is for and what it activates.

Commenters compete to dehumanize Meghan: “the grifter duchess,” half of “the gruesome twosome,” someone whose “downfall” is a spectator sport. One commenter applies a joke comparing Mulroney to a sex worker to make a point about the book deal’s price. Multiple people pledge to be “first in line” to buy a book that doesn’t exist, based on information that hasn’t been disclosed, about events they’ve already decided are scandalous.

Most revealing is the conspiracy escalation. One commenter writes: “We need to know about her yachting career and how well she knows Andrew and Epstein.” This is the “yacht girl” conspiracy theory, a racist and misogynistic smear with no evidentiary basis alleging Meghan engaged in sex work, presented alongside a casual accusation that Meghan has ties to Epstein.

The irony is staggering. In a period when documented evidence of Andrew’s relationship with Epstein is being released by the DOJ (photographs, emails, potential criminal referrals) Shuter’s audience is speculating about Meghan’s supposed Epstein connections. The projection isn’t subtext. It’s the text.

Shuter didn’t write the Epstein conspiracy into his comment section. But his framing (“she saw everything,” “deeply uncomfortable,” “tick tick tick”) created the permission structure. When you tell an audience that someone has dark secrets, the audience fills in those secrets with whatever confirms their existing hatred. The comment section isn’t an unfortunate byproduct of the post. It’s the product.

The Mirror’s September comment section operates the same way at a smaller scale: Meghan is “megatron,” she’s “toxic,” she allegedly makes threats. The dehumanization is the entry fee for participating in the conversation.

What a $1 Million Offer Actually Buys

The tabloid narrative about Meghan has been built almost entirely on anonymous sourcing for seven years. Prince Harry’s legal action against the Daily Mail has put the mechanics of tabloid intelligence-gathering on trial, exposing how “palace insiders” and “sources close to the couple” actually operate. What the industry needs now is a named source, someone with a face and a credible proximity claim willing to attach their identity to the narrative that anonymous sources have been constructing.

Jessica Mulroney is the ideal candidate: a real person, genuinely close to Meghan, with a public grievance and no remaining professional ties to the Sussexes. The $1 million, if it ever existed, wouldn’t be purchasing her memories of yoga and brunches. It would be purchasing her willingness to become the face of a story that’s been faceless for years. The difference between “a source says Meghan is difficult” and “her former best friend says Meghan is difficult” is the difference between gossip and product. The attribution is what’s being sold.

But Mulroney said no. So the ecosystem does the next best thing: it reports on the offer itself, repeatedly, across months, as though the offer is the news. The September Mirror piece. The February Shuter post. The OK! article. The Reality Tea repackage. The Yahoo syndication. Each iteration seeds the same ideas (that Mulroney has explosive information, that Meghan has something to hide, that the people closest to her inevitably turn against her) without any of those ideas ever being substantiated.

The tell-all doesn’t need to be written to do its work. The reporting about the tell-all is the tell-all.

The Pressure Campaign

By reporting and re-reporting the offer, and by amplifying it across outlets with comment sections full of people begging Mulroney to accept, the media is conducting a sustained public pressure campaign on a woman who already said no. Shuter’s comment section is explicit: “Do it, Jessica!” “Do it for the world.” “Where do I preorder?” The message to Mulroney is unmistakable: there is money, fame, and an army of supporters waiting.

And if she continues to refuse? That’s fine. The articles have already established that she possesses “deeply uncomfortable” information. They’ve created anticipation for a product that may never exist. They’ve accomplished the same narrative goal the book would serve: reinforcing the idea that Meghan has something to hide.

Meanwhile, no comparable pressure campaign exists for anyone in Kate’s orbit to reveal what they know about Andrew’s decades of association with a convicted sex trafficker. The tell-all industrial complex is selective about whose secrets it wants exposed, and the selection criteria have nothing to do with the public interest.

---

The Bottom Line: A gossip columnist resurrected a dead story, about a book deal the subject already rejected, around the same time the documents exposing Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. No one is offering Kate’s inner circle $1 million to reveal what they knew. The projection is the product: manufacture the suggestion that Meghan has dark secrets worth exposing, and hope no one notices that the actual dark secrets, documented, photographed, and now under police investigation, belong to the institution that cast her out.