The Tig

Three years of her own words — the archive of who she was before the palace.

What it was

The Tig was Meghan Markle’s lifestyle website, launched in May 2014 and closed in April 2017. The name came from Tignanello, the Tuscan red wine — tasting it, she wrote, was her moment of understanding what people meant by a “grown-up” palate.

The site covered the standard lifestyle territory — food, travel, beauty, fashion — but its distinguishing feature was “Tig Talk”: interviews with women Markle admired, from chefs to activists. And running underneath the lifestyle content was a steady current of advocacy writing about work, identity, and women’s lives.

What she wrote

The Tig archive is the richest source of Markle’s pre-royal voice in her own words. The pieces most quoted since:

• “How To Be Both” — her essay on reconciling red-carpet life with humanitarian field work, containing the widely quoted lines: “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 “While my life shifts from refugee camps to red carpets, I choose them both because these worlds can, in fact, co-exist. And for me, they must.”
• Her account of being “gobsmacked” by leaders rather than celebrities: “Put me in a room with Madeleine Albright or former President of Ireland Mary Robinson, and for once in my life, you’ll find this girl with the gift of gab, unequivocally without words.”
• Her India essay on girls and menstruation, written after her January 2017 World Vision trip.

She also described the site’s editorial intent as an attempt to “reframe the beauty content to include think pieces about self-empowerment” and feature dynamic, inspirational women.

The closure

She shut the site in April 2017, after three years. No public reason was given. Press speculation at the time linked the closure to her developing relationship with Prince Harry and its possible royal future — but that is inference. The documented facts are the dates and the archive itself.

Why it matters

Because The Tig preserves her positions in her own words — on feminism, work, and representation — it is the primary source this site’s Sayings page draws on for the pre-royal years. It is also the clearest evidence for the through-line the site traces in Key Ideas: the advocacy voice predates the royalty by years.

Source notes

• Launch (May 2014) and closure (April 2017): contemporary press reporting; the site’s farewell post.
• “How To Be Both” and quoted passages: The Tig archives, via contemporary press quotation.
• India/menstruation essay: written after the January 2017 World Vision trip; reported at the time.
• Editorial intent (“reframe the beauty content…”): her description of the site, quoted in 2017–2018 profiles.