Meghan Markle lifts lid on real reason she dramatically changed name of lifestyle brand

Meghan out on why she decided to change the name of her lifestyle brand, saying the old name became 'word salad' adding: "I didn’t love that so much." . In the latest episode of her new podcast Confessions of a Female Founder, the Duchess of Sussex chats to celebrity hair colourist

Kadi has co-founded the salon and haircare brand Highbrow Hippie - and the pair chatted about picking an all important name for a business. Over a year ago, , launching both a website and an account for it. However, earlier this year, she made a dramatic U-turn and announced the brand would now be called As Ever.

Meghan had faced setbacks trying to trademark the American Riviera Orchard name. However, in the latest podcast she tells Kadi that she "didn't love" the previous name when it became "word salad".

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She explained: "I had secured As Ever as a name in 2022, and then as everything started to evolve last year, and bringing in a partner the size that it was, it was just so interesting. You remember, I said, 'I like American Riviera as an umbrella,' and then be able to have verticals beneath it.

"And maybe have the 'Orchard' really small. But when that's not feasible, suddenly it became this word salad. I didn't love that so much. "I was like, 'OK, let's go back to the thing that I've always loved. Let's use the name that I protected for a reason that had sort of been under wraps'.

"And then we were able to focus in the quiet and put our heads down and build on something that no one was sniffing around to even see about. It was really just helpful to have that quiet period."

Meghan revealed the change to her business name earlier this year in an Instagram video: "Last year, I had thought ‘You know what, American Riviera, that sounds like such a great name, it’s my neighbourhood, it’s a nickname for Santa Barbara’, but it limited me to things that were just manufactured and grown in this area. Then came on, not just as my partner in the show, but as my partner in my business, which was huge."

Meghan greeted Kadi in the episode by saying: "Disregard the state of my hair right now. I’m so excited I’m seeing you next week. I should have a baseball cap on." The duchess said the pair met in 2020 – the year of Megxit when Meghan and the quit the working monarchy for a new life in the US – and told of her attempts to dye her own hair at home during the pandemic.

The duchess, who invested in her friend's brand said: "It was 2020 – it was very much 2020." She added: "My family had just moved to California. We were staying in our friend’s home and, because it was the pandemic, I kept ordering boxed hair dye, and I thought I’m gonna look just like she does on the box. And instead it was this very inky, almost Elvira-esque black hair."

Lee, who was called in at the time to help Meghan with her hair, said: "I remember meeting you guys, and you were so warm and both you and H wrapped us up in these big bear hugs and I was like ‘I don’t even know these people and I’m not a hugger but let’s do it’."

Reflecting on having to close her hair salon during the pandemic, Lee added: "It felt like such whiplash and it felt like, gosh we cannot get a break, you know?" Meghan laughed and added: "Oh, I understand."

Meghan has already released two previous episodes of her new eight-part podcast with Lemonada Media, which promises "girl talk" and advice on how to create "billion-dollar businesses". It follows the duchess’s much-criticised lifestyle series With Love, Meghan and her new brand As Ever, which sold out of its first batch of raspberry spread, flower sprinkles and herbal tea.

In th first episode, she chatted to Whitney Wolfe Herd, the founder of the dating app Bumble. During the chat, Meghan talked about her experiences of being a mum and revealed she suffered from a 'huge medical scare' after giving birth. She explained: "We both had very similar experiences — though we didn't know each other at the time — with postpartum, and we both had preeclampsia. Postpartum preeclampsia. It's so rare and so scary.

Meghan added: "And you're still trying to juggle all of these things, and the doesn't know what's happening quietly. And in the quiet, you're still trying to show up for people – mostly for your children — but those things are huge medical scares." Whitney replied: "I mean life or death, truly." Postpartum preeclampsia is a rare condition that causes high after birth.

Meanwhile, last week, Meghan spoke to Reshma Saujani, founder of the not-for-profit Girls Who Code, where she touched on her experience of miscarriage and having to “let something go that you plan to love for a long time”. Meghan had a miscarriage in July 2020, when her eldest child Archie was one, revealing her heartbreak in an article for The New York Times later that year.

The duchess told Ms Saujani, who faced a series of miscarriages due to an autoimmune disease: "The miscarriages that you’ve experienced. I’ve spoken about the miscarriage that we experienced. And I think, in some parallel way, when you have to learn to detach from the thing that you have so much promise and hope for, and to be able to be OK at a certain point to let something go, something go that you plan to love for a long time."