


Add actor Justine Bateman to the growing list of public figures who have taken aim at Meghan Markle following the premiere of the Duchess of Sussex’s much-buzzed-about lifestyle series.
In Sunday’s edition of her Substack newsletter “Race Track,” Bateman blasted Meghan and her husband Prince Harry for what she described as their “very aggressive Victim Olympics campaign.”
“It’s 2025, and no one wants to see victims anymore. No one wants to playact at something they didn’t earn,” she wrote. “No one wants to go along with another’s ‘narrative’ anymore.”
The actor, best known for her portrayal of Mallory Keaton on “Family Ties,” dismissed the idea the couple has suffered racism and mistreatment at the hands of the British royal family and the media.
As for their recent projects ― which include Harry’s 2023 memoir, “Spare,” and Markle’s “Archetypes” podcast ― they are “simply the spoils of them crying out to anyone who would listen about the ‘injuries’ they had sustained,” according to Bateman.
“They are two people riding the fumes of a past Victim Era, in a new era now where victimhood has fallen out of favor,” she wrote.

Markle has found herself on the receiving end of a torrent of criticism following the release of her show “With Love, Meghan.” The eight-episode series, which hit Netflix earlier this month, finds the duchess exchanging cooking and gardening tips with a host of starry guests, including chef Roy Choi and actor Mindy Kaling.
Though Netflix hasn’t unveiled viewership numbers for “With Love, Meghan,” the streaming platform renewed the series for a second season days after its debut. Reviews of the show, however, have been mixed to negative, with The Guardian calling it “toe-curlingly unlovable TV.”
British-American journalist Tina Brown, a former editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair and the New Yorker, blasted Markle and her series in a post on her own Substack last week.
“Masquerading as an influencer, she’s the ultimate follower, which inevitably means she is behind the curve,” Brown wrote of the duchess, who she believes “has never figured out a convincing persona.”

As for Bateman, she’s made headlines in recent months for a number of eyebrow-raising statements regarding U.S. politics. Last week, she proposed that President Donald Trump work with tech billionaire Elon Musk to use some of the funds they’ve acquired through government layoffs and spending freezes to finance feature films in Hollywood.
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“Let’s start small — give me $100 million or $50 million, and I am going to get you five to seven fantastic, ‘Oh my God, America’s back’ kind of films,” she told The Wrap.
Though Bateman didn’t mention “With Love, Meghan” by name, she suggested that “cooking shows” are better when they’re hosted by “people who have quietly toiled in the kitchen for years.”
She ended her post on a slightly optimistic note, suggested “interesting things could emerge” from the Duke and Duchess of Sussex if they took time to “enrich themselves and discover who they truly are.”