Meghan Markle’s ex-best friend Jessica Mulroney did a U-turn after defending the duchess
They were BFFs...The list of famous pals surrounding Meghan has changed throughout the years. With celebrities by her side before and after her royal wedding to the Duke of Sussex coming and going. However, one friend that appeared to be Meghan Markle‘s ride or die, Jessica Mulroney, ending up quickly disappearing from her life without explanation.
The pair met while the former Suits actress was living and working in Toronto, when she was on hit legal drama Suits.
The Canadian fashion stylist became fast friends with the future royal and fiercely defended her more than once. So what happened? We take a look back at the social media fallout and when Meghan Markle began distancing herself from her former BFF Jessica Mulroney.
Meghan Markle and Jessica Mulroney became friends in Toronto
The Daily Mail notes that Meghan and Jessica’s friendship presumably started in 2011 when the duchess was still living in Toronto and began working on Suits. The Canadian stylist and marketing consultant is believed to have helped pick out the wedding dress Meghan’s Suits character Rachel Zane wore on the show.
In 2018, royal expert Katie Nicholl told Cosmopolitan: “They went to the same yoga and Pilates and became firm friends.” Meghan really looks up to Jessica. She thinks she’s a talented person, a wonderful mother, and a great best friend.”
Meghan even raved about her friend on her now-defunct blog The Tig. She reportedly described the Canadian stylist and television personality as “savvy and fashionable and tres cool, and also va va va voom pritaaaay.”
The duchess also praised Jessica, writing, “And here’s the other thing – she also happens to be an incredible stylist, clothing the likes of Canada’s First Lady, Sophie Trudeau.”
When Harry and Meghan made their first public appearance as a couple in 2017, she let them stay at her home.
Jessica was a part of Meghan and Harry’s wedding
Between 2016 and 2017, the two often featured on each other’s Instagram. In February 2016, Jessica had reportedly teased a trip to the Cayman Islands with Meghan.
Jessica also shared snaps of the two fashion-loving ladies sipping cocktails at sunset and having fun in the sun on the Amalfi coast. The stylist also accompanied the Duchess to her first Invictus Games appearance in 2017.
Rumors suggest that Jessica was the first person Meghan reached out to after Prince Harry proposed.
BJessica’s sons and daughter were involved in the royal wedding. They were page boys and a flower girl on the day of the nuptials, and Jessica Mulroney herself walked into St George’s Chapel alongside Meghan Markle’s new sister-in-law Kate Middleton. You can’t get closer to the royal family that then Princess of Wales!
She was even invited to join the newlyweds on their royal tour of Australia, Fiji, Tonga and New Zealand. A year later, she was among Meghan’s list of friends who organised her baby shower in New York City.
Read more: When Harry met Meghan – How a royal prince kept his romance ‘secret’
Jessica Mulroney defended Meghan Markle in the press
Jessica was among the first of Meghan’s friends to comment on her treatment by the media during her years with the royal family.
At a time when the Sussexes were being slammed for their use of private jets, despite being outspoken environmentalists, Jessica took to Instagram to call their criticism unfair.
“When someone faces unfair criticism, you call it out. When that person is your friend and your family, you call those critics what they truly are,” she reportedly wrote, “Shame on you, you racist bullies.”
She defended the royal again in March 2021 after Meghan was accused of bullying former palace aides. The Duchess of Sussex has denied this claims.
The wedding stylist said on Instagram at the time: “I don’t know that anyone has ever had to deal with the pressure, the politics and the press like this woman.
“In the face of it all, I have never seen her waver from kindness, empathy and love.”
Embroiled in race row
Months after Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s royal exit in 2020, Jessica Mulroney landed in a controversy of her own when influencer Sasha Exeter called her out in the “white privilege” row. To deal with the backlash, Jessica seemingly referenced Meghan’s experience in the royals.
Jessica came under fire when Sasha called her out for displaying “textbook white privilege” in the fashion blogging community. The influencer says Jessica ‘took offence’ when she called for social media stars and bloggers to speak out in support of the Black Lives Matter movements.
She then claimed Meg’s BFF sent her a private message about going to the press. Sasha claimed Jessica told her: “If you go to the press over this nonsense and threaten to go to your followers, I won’t be afraid to go to brands and tell them what you are doing to me.”
But then she name-dropped the royal without actually outing the duchess.
Jessica later apologised over the incident: “I want to say from my heart that every word of my apologies to Sasha over the course of the last two weeks privately, and again both publicly and privately today is true.”
“As I told you privately, I have lived a very public and personal experience with my closest friend where race was front and centre. It was deeply educational. I learned a lot from that. I promise to continue to learn and listen on how I can use my privilege to elevate and support black voices.”
The duchess reportedly did not appreciate being involved in Jessica’s very public controversy.
An insider told Page Six that their friendship was already strained because Meghan felt that Jessica was trying to “make a career out of the friendship.”
Now Jessica is seemingly taking digs at her former friend through her social media.
Cryptic posts seemingly aimed at royal
In June 2021, when reports claimed the pair were no longer close, Jessica Mulroney shared a quote that many fans thought was targeted at Meghan Markle.
She shared on her Instagram story: “Life changes. You lose love. You lose friends. You lose pieces of yourself that you never imagined would be gone.
“And then, without even realising it, those pieces come back. New love enters. Better friends come along. And a stronger, wiser you, is staring back in the mirror.”
She later posted a photo of her ‘best girlfriends’ and Meghan was nowhere to be seen.
In December 2023, Jessica reposted a video by @WomennSoul on her Instagram Story. It featured an unidentified woman talking about people who do not see both sides of a story.
“Anybody who believes lies about you, before even hearing your side of the story, was already looking for a way to be against you,” she says.
Although the stylist did not add any context to the clip, many were quick to assume it had something to do with Meghan.
Read more: Valid reason Meghan Markle is ‘not a princess’ despite calling herself one
Is Meghan Markle still friends with Jessica Mulroney?
Meghan recently rejoined Instagram after shutting her page down after she married Harry. However, the stylist doesn’t appear to be among the 1.6 million followers.
In August 2025, sources close to Jessica Mulroney claimed the star was having ‘regrets’ over her friendship and subsequent fallout with Meghan Markle.
Jessica, who is divorcing husband Ben after 16 years, reportedly felt ‘tensions’ within her marriage after the demise of the friendship played out in the public eye.
Insiders told the Daily Mail that she wishes “she was never part” of the couple’s royal wedding.
They also claimed her downfall on social media caused a rift with her pal Meghan.
They said: “While she enjoyed all the exposure it brought her at the time, that same exposure is what caused her social media rift to blow up in the way it did and led to the end of her friendship with Meghan and her marriage.”
The source added that Jessica looks back at the time as a “dark cloud” despite previously seeing the duchess as ‘family’.
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