Meghan Markle’s Former Television Show, ‘Suits,’ Just Broke a Streaming Record at Netflix

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published 11 September 2023

The breakout hit of Meghan Markle’s acting career, the television show Suits, is having a resurgence in popularity, despite being off the air for four years this month. The show’s renaissance comes from its appearance on Netflix this summer, where it has set a streaming record for the network, The Mirror reports. Suits is now the first television show to garner an impressive 3 billion minutes viewed for seven weeks straight on Netflix—that equates to 26.5 billion minutes watched in the two months since returning to screens earlier this summer.

The show still has to surpass Stranger Things for the highest viewing total in eight weeks; the Netflix original’s fourth season holds the record for a staggering 35.5 billion minutes viewed.

Meghan Markle launching her Smart Works collection in 2019

Suits has stayed around 3 billion minutes for longer than any program since Nielsen streaming records began in 2020, The Mirror reports. The show, which ran for nine seasons on the USA Network, is set in a fictional New York City corporate law firm and aired from 2011 to 2019, with Meghan appearing as Rachel Zane for seven of those nine seasons, departing in 2018. The show’s creator Aaron Korsch told The L.A. Times that he thinks the show’s renewed success is thanks, at least in part, to Meghan’s fame.

Meghan is due to fly into Dusseldorf, Germany today to join husband Prince Harry at the Invictus Games, which kicked off on Saturday and run until this upcoming Saturday, September 16. Before the Games end, Harry will celebrate his thirty-ninth birthday on Friday, and Meghan is set to do something “meaningful” for the occasion, The Mirror reports.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in South Africa

Royal historian Tessa Dunlop said the couple always give each other gifts with meaning, divulging that one year it was “just a picture of [Prince] Archie”—but, of course, to his parents, there could be nothing better. Dunlop predicts Meghan will give Harry a “significant” gift for his birthday this year, and at the Invictus Games “they’ll do a double act there,” she said. “They’ll do something meaningful. They’re in a neutral space in Germany and I think they’ll have a good one.”

Harry’s birthday has historically been hard for him, Dunlop said. His mother, Princess Diana, died just two weeks before his thirteenth birthday in 1997; her funeral was just nine days before his birthday on September 6. “There’s a lot of pain around a September birthday for Harry because of the big funeral and the ramifications with his mother,” Dunlop said.

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Rachel Burchfield is a writer, editor, and podcaster whose primary interests are fashion and beauty, society and culture, and, most especially, the British Royal Family and other royal families around the world. She serves as Marie Claire’s Senior Celebrity and Royals Editor and has also contributed to publications like Allure, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar, InStyle, People, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and W, among others. Before taking on her current role with Marie Claire, Rachel served as its Weekend Editor and later Royals Editor. She is the cohost of Podcast Royal, a show that was named a top five royal podcast by The New York Times. A voracious reader and lover of books, Rachel also hosts I’d Rather Be Reading, which spotlights the best current nonfiction books hitting the market and interviews the authors of them. Rachel frequently appears as a media commentator, and she or her work has appeared on outlets like NBC’s Today Show, ABC’s Good Morning America, CNN, and more.

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