Fact Check: Did Meghan Markle keep $1.7K dress from fashion shoot without paying for it?
NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: A claim has been circulating alleging that Meghan Markle kept an expensive designer dress from a past fashion shoot, and supposedly added it to her personal royal archive.
The claim has been widely shared on social media and picked up by many outlets, raising questions about whether she improperly retained the gown. Let us fact-check it.
Claim: Meghan Markle walked away from 2022 Variety shoot with a $1,695 gown
The dress in question is the one-shoulder, emerald green Galvan “Ushuaia” gown she wore for a 2022 Variety photo shoot.
Meghan caught the attention of the viewers over the weekend when a trailer of her show 'With Love, Meghan: Holiday Celebration', which showed her in a dress that some claim kept from a 2022 Variety cover shoot.
A source told Page Six that Meghan allegedly walked away from the shoot with a $1,695 green gown because it was all part of “archiving” her clothes as a royal.
Another source even confirmed to the outlet that the duchess ended up with the dress.
According to a third source, the whole fiasco is likely "a misunderstanding" and that Meghan "must" take the clothes as a royal.
Meghan dazzles in the Galvan London ‘Ushuaia’ satin tie-neck gown in emerald green for her With Love, Meghan: Holiday Celebration promo. It’s the same elegant dress she first wore for her October 2022 Variety cover shoot :sparkles::green_heart: pic.twitter.com/nFOWy4qpF4
— Rebecca :brown_heart: (@rebecca_sussex) November 10, 2025
Fact Check: Meghan Markle's spokesperson refuted the claim
Meghan Markle has hit back against accusations that she walked away from a photo shoot with an expensive designer dress.
A spokesperson of the Duchess of Sussex debunked the claims, telling The Royalist, “The insinuation that any items were taken without the full knowledge and agreement of the on-set stylists or their respective teams is not only categorically false, but also highly defamatory.”
"Any items kept were done so in total transparency and in accordance with contractual arrangements,” they added.
Similar allegations against Meghan Markle
In 2024, journalist Vanessa Grigoriadis claimed on Andrew Gold’s 'Heretics' podcast that the former royal took “a lot of stuff” after she “wore it in a very high-profile photo shoot.”
“What’s shocking about hearing these kinds of alleged stories is that somebody who is living in a $15 million plus mansion in Montecito, who’s just had $100 million deals, would care enough to take home some jewelry and clothes from a photoshoot that she can clearly afford,” Grigoriadis, a contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine and Vanity Fair, said on the podcast.
