Kimai, a jewelry company founded for women, has responded to allegations that they gifted earrings to Meghan Markle, asserting that she actually purchased them.
The Duchess of Sussex, aged 42, faced criticism for supposedly receiving diamond earrings valued at £1,990 from the entrepreneurs featured on Dragon’s Den. Reports claimed she received the jewelry in 2019, during her tenure as a senior member of the Royal Family.
Initial reports suggested that the synthetic diamond brand presented the Felicity earrings, priced at £995 each, to the ex-actress of ‘Suits’ at her Kensington Palace office. However, Kimai disputed these claims in a statement to The Mirror, clarifying that Meghan Markle bought the earrings, and they were neither gifted nor complimentary.
Although accepting gifts is not prohibited by royal protocol, it is customary for senior royals like Kate Middleton and Prince William to return gifts to avoid controversy over ‘freebies’. Nonetheless, Meghan was seen wearing the earrings during a visit to the Smart Works charity in London in 2019, soon after her purchase.
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Earlier this month, Kimai’s founders Sidney Neuhaus and Jessica Warch appeared on BBC Two show Dragons’ Den, and they revealed Meghan wore their designs after sending her office regular emails. “We’ve launched without investment, and then two months after our launch we got Meghan Markle to wear our pieces, which enabled us to grow the revenue significantly, and from there we raised $1.2 million,” they told the dragons.
When asked by Steven Bartlett how they got the Duchess of Sussex to wear the earrings, Jessica laughed: “Cold emails. We’re big believers in cold emails!” He later invested £250,000 in their business, and said it was their link to Meghan that sealed the deal. “The moment you told me about hounding down Meghan Markle, you had me,” he quipped.
But just because Meghan didn’t get these earrings as a gift, that doesn’t mean she hasn’t accepted freebies before. Prince Harry revealed his wife accepted free gifts that were sent to her at Kensington Palace, and would distribute them among her staff.
“She shared all the freebies she received, clothes and perfumes and make-up, with all the women in the office,” he wrote in his memoir Spare. However, this stirred up trouble for Meghan, as one assistant was fired after she “traded on her position with Meg to get freebies”, Harry shared.
The attire and jewelry donned by Meghan and Kate Middleton often sell out rapidly. Many royals choose to purchase their own wardrobe to sidestep allegations of accepting complimentary items from fashion labels. Harry surmised that the coolness between Meghan and Kate stemmed from the Princess of Wales’ assumption that her fashion connections could benefit the monarchy’s newcomer.