Before Meghan Markle met her husband, Prince Harry, she was a successful actress, humanitarian, style icon, and a prodigious blogger, producing content for her “inspired lifestyle” site, The Tig (which was named after a mispronunciation of her favorite red wine).
The Tig first went live in May 2014, and IMHO, it was well on its way to becoming the next Goop—or at least Preserve. (RIP, Preserve.) Between writing about her shopping wish list, experiences as a biracial child, and her favorite vacation spots, Meghan interviewed celebrities like Yara Shahidi, Priyanka Chopra, and Serena Williams for her Tig Talks series and shared countless photos and selfies. But then royal duties called! Meghan shut down her site in April 2017 shortly after she and Harry confirmed their relationship. Now all that remains is a farewell note that begs her readers to know their worth and have confidence.
Except that’s not all that remains! Thankfully, nothing on the internet is ever truly gone for good. (Or, okay, not-so-thankfully when you stop to think about old college party photos….) Thanks to sites like the Wayback Machine, cached versions of select pages from The Tig’s archives are still accessible, meaning it’s possible to uncover much of what Meghan wrote about. Here’s everything we learned about The Tig, from its name to its creator and all the style tips, cocktail recipes, and everything that could possibly resurface if those Tig relaunch rumors turn out to be true!
1. “Tig” isn’t just a nickname for wine, it’s also what Meghan calls her aha moments.
In the site’s About section, she wrote about the first time she tried Tignanello wine and how complicated wine lingo finally clicked in her mind. Before, it was just alcohol. After Tignanello, she understood and could identify what made wine taste so amazing:
“It wasn’t just red or white—suddenly, I understood what people meant by the body, legs, structure of wine. It was an aha moment at its finest. For me, it became a Tig moment—a moment of getting it. From that point on, any new awareness, any new discovery or ‘Ohhhhh, I get it!’ moment was a Tig moment.”
In other words, Oh, shit, I’m going to be a princess or Oh, shit, I gotta get out of the royal family is a total Tig moment.
2. And if The Tig’s name didn’t give it away, girlfriend loves her wine.
In one of the travel diaries Meghan shared, she wrote that Malta is one of the best places for food and wine. Her favorite wine from the island is Vermintino, and she loves the Meridiana Winery—a winery that’s owned by the makers of her favorite Tignanello wine. Send her a bottle as a welcome back to America, then!
3. She has a “love of all things Brit.”
You don’t say! In a recipe post for her signature Tig Cup cocktail, Meghan said she loves picnics and barbecues and wanted to put a fresh spin on the classic British Pimm’s Cup—a lemony gin drink.
You can tell by the way she writes that this woman knows how to throw a good party:
“Sun-kissed afternoons, cocktail in hand, surrounded by nothing but the laughter of your closest mates, an Otis Redding playlist, and the whistling breeze of the wind. I’m talking about perfection, people. The perfection that comes with summertime.”
Oh, and did you notice how she called her friends “mates”?! So British. And in another post, she wrote about the best afternoon tea.
4. Her beagle, Guy, was a fan of his UK home.
Meghan posted a photo of her beloved pup in a Union Jack sweater in December 2016—right after she and Harry started dating! (Just FYI, though, the sweater had actually been around for a while—she’d tweeted that it’s a hand-me-down from her older dog, Bogart. Look at good little Guy!
5. And she’s always been obsessed with royals.
In a Tig Talk interview with real-life Libyan princess Alia Al-Senussi, Meghan confessed, “I had a bit of a ‘pinch-myself-I’m-emailing-with-a-princess’ moment.” Totally understandable! Little did she know she’d be meeting a lot more princesses in the future and become a duchess herself.
6. She loves using the F-word, and don’t even try to tell her she shouldn’t.
Well, it may be a royal faux pas, but Meghan doesn’t shy away from expressing herself, which includes the occasional F-bomb. When writing about her favorite thing about New York City, she exclaimed it’s the city’s “motherf***ing fantastic, crave-worthy food.” Well, she was hardly going to choose the subway system.
For those who say she can’t say that word, she’s here to assure you that she can. In a March 2016 post called “Badass Reading List,” Meghan wrote, “You can be a lady and say whatever you want” after she dropped the F-word again. F*ck yeah, Megs!
7. Her parents are incredibly important to her.
On Father’s Day in 2014, she shared an emotional story about how her dad, Thomas, told her to “draw her own box” when confronted with a form that made her check a box and choose if she was black or white. Needless to say, that stuck with her and she’s been thinking outside the box ever since. (Unfortunately, she and her father are now estranged due to some drama involving the British tabloids, but hopefully that gets resolved soon.)
In a Mother’s Day post also in 2014, she said she learned so many lessons from her mom, Doria—about healthy eating, history, the outdoors, and how to be a loving and compassionate person.
8. Aside from “Duchess,” she has four nicknames.
While some of us are still trying to live down our Lil Punkin nicknames, Meghan used to go by Meg, MM, M&M, and Flower. Ugh, those are good nicknames.
9. She gives the best Valentine’s Day advice.
In 2015, Meghan recalled being single and in a “funk” around Valentine’s Day. But after chatting with her “Suits sister wives” and realizing that she should give herself the same love and acceptance she shows to everyone else, she decided to “be my own valentine.” She wrote:
“This Valentine’s Day, I will be with friends, running amock [sic] through the streets of New York, likely imbibing some cocktail that’s oddly pink, and jumping over icy mounds in my new shoes through the salted snowy streets of the West Village. But those shoes, by the way, were my gift to myself. Because I’ve worked hard, because I’m not going to wait for someone to buy me the things I covet (nor do I want to), and because I want to treat myself as well as I treat those dearest to me. Because I am my own funny Valentine.”
Aye, that’s the spirit!
10. She’s not a fan of mushy love stories.
For a post about perfect vacation reads, Meghan admitted she’s not a fan of The Notebook. Finally, somebody said it! (Don’t @ me!) She wrote, “Here’s the thing—just as with the movie The Notebook, I have never seen these endlessly romantic love stories that people speak about with such tremendous adoration nor have I read the books of which they are based.” Give her realistic stories or nothing at all!
11. She’s not afraid to bare it all.
Well, maybe not all, but she does show a little skin and lay her emotions on the table in her first annual birthday post in 2014. In the “Birthday Suit” entry, she celebrated turning 33 and wrote:
“I am happy. And I say that so plainly because, well…it takes time. To be happy. To figure out how to be kind to yourself. To not just choose that happiness but to feel it. My 20s were brutal—a constant battle with myself, judging my weight, my style, my desire to be as cool/as hip/as smart/as ‘whatever’ as everyone else.”
12. She had a tough time fitting in with her classmates in high school.
In the same birthday post, Meghan wrote:
“My high school had cliques: the black girls and white girls, the Filipino and the Latina girls. Being biracial, I fell somewhere in between. So every day during lunch, I busied myself with meetings—French club, student body, whatever one could possibly do between noon and 1 p.m.—I was there. Not so that I was more involved, but so that I wouldn’t have to eat alone.”
13. But that changed when she was in her mid-20s.
After a casting director told her she needed to know her worth, Meghan wrote of learning to embrace everything about herself, even the so-called imperfections.
“I must have been about 24 when a casting director looked at me during an audition and said, ‘You need to know that you’re enough. Less makeup, more Meghan,’” she recalled. “You need to know that you’re enough” became the essence of The Tig and her mantra.
“That five pounds lost won’t make you happier, that more makeup won’t make you prettier, that now-iconic saying from Jerry Maguire—“You complete me”—frankly, isn’t true. You are complete with or without a partner. You are enough just as you are.”
Hello, Oprah? Is that you?
14. Not long after, Meghan landed her role on Suits, but it didn’t come easy.
During her very first audition for the USA show, Meghan was so distracted, she forgot her lines and thought she’d messed up her chances of a callback. Of course, we all know things worked out in the end, but before she found out, she had a bout of discouragement where she sulked at home until she heard back from the casting agents. “I went home and ate my feelings (likely some iteration of bread and cheese—pizza, quesadilla, it didn’t matter) because I wasn’t in a place to be able to let it go,” she wrote. “I wanted it, and I lost my shot at it.”
Luckily, that feeling didn’t last long, and when she got the okay for her next audition, Meghan had to find a new outfit at the last minute. She chose a classy black dress, which she still has to this day.
15. Acting isn’t the only thing on her résumé.
Meghan is also well known for her charity work. For International Women’s Day in 2017, she traveled to Delhi and Mumbai, India, and published an article in Time magazine that called for equal education opportunities for young girls.
“When we empower girls hungry for education, we cultivate women who are emboldened to effect change within their communities and globally,” she wrote. “If that is our dream for them, then the promise of it must begin with us. Period.”
16. And she has ambition.
When talking about her work as a global ambassador for World Vision Canada and working with the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, Meghan wrote, “I’ve never wanted to be a lady who lunches—I’ve always wanted to be a woman who works. And this type of work is what feeds my soul and fuels my purpose.”
And it’s safe to say she continued that pattern while she was in the royal family and now that she has left and moved back to California.
17. And she could probably add professional trendsetter to her résumé too.
In July 2014, Meghan shared the wondrous feeling of discovering the perfect avocado toast (from Little Collins in NYC) and became an early pioneer of the food trend.
She also set trends in the fashion sphere—did you know she coined the term “bobret”? Well, maybe you’ve never heard of it, but you definitely know what fashion style it describes—Meghan’s, duh! It’s a laid-back bohemian style mixed with Breton, which is a classic preppy style similar to Audrey Hepburn’s. Whether you adopt the term “bobret” or not, you’ll definitely want to take some style inspiration from her if you haven’t already.
18. She’d make the best shopping buddy.
Meghan had a whole section on her blog dedicated to shopping and her favorite items, which you should absolutely bookmark. If you want get Meghan’s style in a matter of clicks, head over to Kate Spade for a business card holder, Baggu for a classic tote bag, Chloé for the Roses perfume, and J.Crew for a winter coat.
19. She started her skincare routine way early.
IDK about you, but when I was 13, I was scrubbing my face with St. Ives Apricot Scrub and hoping it would cure all my problems. LOL, so young, so naive. Meghan, on the other hand, was laying the groundwork for her radiant skin and getting facials. If only I had that same foresight!
20. And last but not least, her mirror-selfie game is on point.
Although we don’t get to see many non-paparazzi or nonprofessional photos of Meghan these days, know that she used to kill the mirror-selfie game. Throughout her site, there are carousels of photos taken from her social media feeds and some that she uploaded, and like many feeds, they’re filled with selfies.
