They’ve dropped like flies – work collaborators, relatives and close friends who have been shooed from the duchess’s orbit.
But few of Meghan Markle’s relationships soured more abruptly than her friendship with Jessica Mulroney, her closest confidante during the time she met and married Prince Harry.
‘They were BFFs, minus, as it turns out, the forever part,’ said one Toronto marketing and public relations executive who describes the duo as ‘Instagram-era friends’ whose falling out is ‘a parable about opportunism.’
In the years since capturing the world’s attention as Harry’s royal bride and the subsequent Duchess of Sussex, several of Meghan’s friendships, allies and post-royal ventures have fallen apart almost as fast as they formed.
Mulroney, a 45-year-old Toronto-based stylist and socialite, was something of Canadian royalty, married until recently to national TV personality Ben Mulroney, son of the late Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.
She also comes from a prominent family that owns a major shoe store chain in Canada.
She met Markle shortly after the actress moved to Toronto in 2011 to film the TV legal drama Suits.
They became fast friends, bonding over shared interests in Pilates, yoga, fashion, and opportunities to hobnob with the rich and famous.
Mulroney was useful, offering the kinds of social and business contacts that the ever-ambitious American lacked upon arrival in the Great White North.

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Despite their once close relationship, Meghan Markle and bestie Jessica Mulroney cut ties for good in 2020

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Meghan went from cable TV actress to duchess to exiled royal over an eight-year span

​​’Meghan has always been astute in flattering fashionable and famous women and absorbing their networks,’ royal biographer Tina Brown wrote in her book, The Palace Papers.
Mulroney also made Markle look good.
Until meeting the fashion maven, the actress had a long string of wardrobe fails, often choosing too-low necklines or too-high hemlines panned for looking age-inappropriate and trashy.
Dubbed the ‘fairy godmother of Canadian fashion’ by Harper’s Bazaar, the always elegant Mulroney had dressed Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, the then-wife of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and other Canadian celebrities.
She crafted a more sleek and elegant look for her new friend, and also worked styling Markle’s character, Rachel Zane, on Suits.
Her influence drew the actress toward more sophisticated tailoring, luxury fabrics and muted colors.
‘It was because of Jess that Meghan began wearing clothes rather than clothes wearing her,’ said a Toronto-based designer who asked not to be named.
By many accounts, the stylist became the actress’s bestie, the person Markle reportedly was closest to other than her mother, former makeup artist Doria Ragland.

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Insiders say Meghan went from a up-and-coming LA actress to a more sophisticated public figure with Jessica at her side; they are pictured together in 2015

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The two women reportedly bonded over a love of yoga and shared photos of their travels together on social media

The duo made joint social appearances in which they seemed to coordinate their hair – cut to the same length and styled similarly – shoes and outfits.
Here they were on social media toasting each other over wine. There they were sunbathing poolside.
They appeared together sporting similar jeans and ski caps. They vacationed together on the Amalfi Coast on a getaway Mulroney called a ‘fake honeymoon.’
‘Girls trip has officially begun with @meghanmarkle (which means don’t bother me unless you have to),’ she captioned a photo from their trip to the Cayman Islands in 2016.
Mulroney acted as a close confidante during the period when Markle met and dated the prince, hosting the couple away from photographers.
In their Netflix documentary, Harry & Meghan, the couple aired footage of Markle FaceTiming her friend just before he popped the question.
‘Oh, my God, Jess, it’s happening,’ Markle squealed. ‘He told me not to peek.’
Mulroney reportedly played a key role in planning the Sussexes’ lavish 2018 wedding.

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The two friends were so close, Meghan even appointed Mulroney as chief bridesmaid and included her children in her royal wedding to Prince Harry in 2018

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According to reports, Mulroney played a pivotal role in secretly linking up Meghan with Harry in London in the early days of their relationship

It is a testament to her then-closeness with the bride that her daughter Ivy and twin boys John and Brian were included as flower girl and page boys.
‘Proud friend. Proud mom,’ the stylist posted under a photograph of her boys holding the train of Markle’s dress.
Mulroney parlayed her role in one of this century’s highest profile weddings into a gig hosting, I Do, Redo, a show on Netflix in which she helped arrange do-over fantasy weddings for couples whose original celebrations flopped.
She also snagged a gig as a style contributor to Good Morning America.
The friends kept in close touch after Markle became a royal, with Mulroney making trips to London to visit the duchess and style her looks for key appearances, including the couple’s October 2018 tour of Australia, Fiji, Tonga and New Zealand, on which she reportedly accompanied them.
In 2019, she was quick to defend the Sussexes after they were slammed for frequently using private jets despite Harry’s pronouncements calling to save the planet from climate change.
‘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. Shame on you, you racist bullies,’ Mulroney wrote on Instagram.
That same year, Mulroney attended Markle’s lavish A-list baby shower in New York, and is said to have played a role arranging the duke and duchess’s housing on Canada’s Vancouver Island when they fled the UK.

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In 2019, Mulroney attended Meghan’s lavish A-list baby shower at the Mark Hotel in New York

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They were once the besties that enjoyed soaring up to the height of the A-lister world together; but a controversy over ‘white privilege’ led the two to part ways for good

Mulroney posted a quote on her Instagram account fiercely supporting Markle when the couple made their break with the crown official.
‘A strong woman looks a challenge in the eye and gives it a wink,’ it read.
At one point, court records show, Mulroney tried to orchestrate more positive newspaper coverage of the increasingly criticized duchess.
But their friendship went south not long after the Sussexes made their permanent home in Southern California.
It was 2020, the height of global uproar over the police killing of George Floyd, when Mulroney found herself in a social media spat with a Canadian influencer who had called on public figures to use their platforms to decry racial injustice.
As that influencer, Sasha Exeter tells it, Mulroney felt personally attacked by her call to action, allegedly contacting companies to cancel their contracts with Exeter, who is black, and threatening her with a libel suit.
Exeter publicly called Mulroney out for ‘textbook white privilege.’
Mulroney tried defending herself by citing her friendship with the biracial duchess.

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The pair’s close friendship came crashing down in 2020 after Mulroney got caught up in a ‘white privilege’ scandal involving black lifestyle blogger Sasha Exeter

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The rise and fall of the friendship between Meghan Markle and Jessica Mulroney

‘I have lived a very public and personal experience with my closest friend where race was front and center. It was deeply educational. I learned a lot from that,’ she said.
But her ‘some-of-my-best-friends-are-black’ retort backfired, causing Good Morning America and CTV, Canada’s largest privately owned television network, to sever ties with her.
The controversy also prompted her then-husband, Ben, to leave his job as anchor of CTV’s morning show after 18 years with the network.
He later went on to criticize CTV and social activists at the time for what he deemed their woke ideology.
Markle seemed to dump her friend in the meantime.
Their falling out has been widely attributed to Markle’s resentment that Mulroney dragged her name into her mishandling of the George Floyd controversy.
But two Torontonians, one with personal and the other with professional ties to Mulroney at the time, told the Daily Mail that the tensions between the women went deeper.
One said Markle felt Mulroney was tone-deaf about racial injustice, an issue Markle felt more strongly and became more outspoken about after experiencing what she perceived as racism by her royal in-laws.

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Jessica was married to now-ex Brian Mulroney when she befriended Meghan, who often gushed about Jessica online – with the pair even going on vacations together

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Married for 16 years, Jessica and husband Ben Mulroney were a power couple in Toronto circles before announcing their shock separation in July 2025

The other said Markle felt disappointed that Mulroney, a woman she admired for championing female empowerment, was either influenced or muzzled by her more politically conservative husband.
‘Maybe Meghan assumed Jessica was more liberal than she really is. Or maybe Jessica was taking certain positions to keep her marriage together,’ said that source, a philanthropist who has known both Mulroneys for years.
Neither has responded to our inquiries.
Mulroney and her husband ended their marriage this past summer not long after she posted on Instagram that they had forgotten their wedding anniversary.
She, in the meantime, has had a tough time bouncing back professionally from her Black Lives Matter controversy and her association with Markle, whom our sources say is as disliked in Canada as she is in the UK.
‘The feeling here is that Jessica’s an opportunist just like Meghan’s an opportunist,’ the PR and marketing exec said. ‘She got used by Meghan and then her brand completely fizzled.’
Mulroney at first tried to make it look like she and the duchess remained close.
‘Meghan and I are family. She is the kindest friend and has checked up on me everyday,’ she posted in 2020.

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Meghan was photographed in Pasadena, California, this week working on her first acting gig since she quit Hollywood to become a duchess eight years ago

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Little is known about the plot or her role but the one-time actress is reportedly set to play herself in the movie

The two have not been seen publicly together for years and Mulroney no longer follows Markle or her brands on Instagram.
Her absence from the Sussexes’ Netflix show about their early relationship and from Markle’s more recent lifestyle series featuring guests she claims to be old friends suggest the BFFs are no longer, at least in the very public way they used to conduct their friendship.
Mulroney alluded to their apparent rift in 2022, posting shortly after the Meghan & Harry Netflix launch that the ‘best thing I ever did was learn how to move without the crowd.’
Although there has been some media speculation that she may be considering penning a tell-all book about her friendship with Markle, our sources cast doubt on that theory.
‘She doesn’t need the money or the aggravation,’ one said.
Added the other: ‘My guess is that she’s trying to move on with her life and put her whole Meghan chapter behind her.’
Markle, meanwhile, was reported this week to be working on her first acting gig since she quit Hollywood to become a working royal eight years ago.
The 44-year-old was spotted on set on Thursday filming a scene for new film, Close Personal Friends, starring Lily Collins, Brie Larson and Jack Quaid.
Not much is known about her role or the plot, other than that she will play herself and that the characters at the heart of the script meet in Santa Barbara and ‘fast become friends.’