Meghan Markle’s attempt at cooking on her Netflix series turned into one of the most baffling displays of knife handling ever witnessed. The unfortunate brand caught in the chaos was Shun Cutlery, whose premium Santoku knife found itself at the center of an unintended spectacle.
It now seems the company is doing everything in its power to erase any trace of its involvement before it suffers the full consequences of what some are calling a PR disaster. One can only imagine the horror at Shun’s headquarters when they saw their high-end knife being held as if it were a cursed artifact from a horror film. Meghan’s grip was so unnatural it seemed as though even her own hand wanted to escape the scene. The poor onion she attempted to chop was in greater danger from sheer incompetence than from the blade itself. What should have been a simple cooking segment instead unraveled into an embarrassing mess. Rather than making the Santoku knife appear sleek and desirable, Meghan made it look like an ancient relic being wielded by someone who had never set foot in a kitchen before.
Of course, this wasn’t really about cooking; it was about selling. Between awkward, almost painful cuts—both figuratively and literally—and blatant product placements, the segment felt more like an infomercial than a genuine cooking demonstration. The issue is that watching someone who clearly cannot cook attempt to promote a premium chef’s knife is as ineffective as watching a non-driver try to sell a luxury sports car. “She isn’t cutting an onion, she’s cutting a deal,” quipped one unimpressed critic. Unfortunately for Shun Cutlery, the only thing being chopped in this scenario was its patience, as the backlash was swift and brutal. The company appears to be retreating at record speed, attempting to distance itself from Meghan faster than a celebrity fleeing from a bad endorsement deal.
But the knife mishandling was only part of the problem. Meghan’s bizarre decision to cook while wearing layers of jewelry left many viewers questioning whether she was more interested in flaunting her rings than actually preparing food. Adding to the spectacle was her choice of pristine beige clothing—an outfit more suited for a high-end boutique than a kitchen. Who actually chops vegetables while looking like they just stepped off the pages of a luxury fashion magazine? “She’s terrified that without her rings and beige aesthetic, we’d see her for who she really is—just another grifter in the kitchen,” one viewer remarked.
It wasn’t just Meghan’s lack of knife skills that drew criticism; it was the desperate attempt to appear effortlessly domestic while achieving the exact opposite. Knife skills don’t always come naturally, but Meghan’s performance felt so painfully forced that it only served to highlight just how much of her public image is a carefully curated act. Ironically, Shun’s Santoku knife is marketed as excelling in three key functions: dicing, slicing, and chopping. Unfortunately, none of those include surviving a Markle PR debacle. Now, as the backlash continues to grow, the only question that remains is whether Shun Cutlery can recover from this disaster—or if Meghan has once again doomed another brand to oblivion.
