The Tig: Inside Meghan Markle's Lifestyle Blog

Long before she was the Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle was a blogger, and a rather good one. From 2014 to 2017 she ran The Tig, a warm, curious lifestyle blog about the things she loved: good food, far-flung travel, quiet style, clever women and the small pleasures of a well-lived life. For three years it was one of the more charming corners of the internet, and it offers a lovely window into the woman she was before royal life.

The Tig mattered because it was hers, written in her own voice, about her own enthusiasms, at a time when she was best known as an actress on the legal drama Suits. It was aspirational without being unattainable, and it built a devoted readership drawn to its mix of recommendations, recipes and gentle wisdom.

Here is the story of The Tig: what it was, where its curious name came from, and why it still fascinates the many who follow the Duchess today.

What was The Tig?

The Tig launched in 2014 as a personal lifestyle website: part travel journal, part style edit, part little black book of good things. Meghan curated it herself, sharing restaurant finds, travel notes from her filming and holiday adventures, beauty discoveries, recipes and interviews with women she admired.

The tone was the thing. It was intimate and encouraging, the voice of a well-travelled friend passing on a great address or a book worth reading. Readers came for the recommendations and stayed for the sensibility: a belief that a good life is built from small, considered choices, whether that meant the right olive oil, a meaningful piece of jewellery, or a trip taken with open eyes.

The name: a wine called Tignanello

The blog’s curious name has one of the loveliest origin stories in modern lifestyle publishing. “Tig” was Meghan’s own nickname for Tignanello, the celebrated Italian Super Tuscan wine from the house of Antinori, which she once described as a turning point in how she understood taste.

As she told it, Tignanello was the wine that made her get wine: the bottle that turned an abstract appreciation into a real, sensory understanding, an “aha” moment of the palate. She adopted the nickname as shorthand for that feeling of discovery, of things clicking into place, and it became the name of the blog. It is a small, telling detail: a lifestyle brand named not for a place or a person, but for a moment of learning to notice. We tell the fuller story of the wine itself in our piece on Tignanello, the wine that named The Tig.

Food, travel and the good life

At its heart, The Tig was a celebration of the good life, sensibly defined. Food ran through everything. Meghan, a keen and confident home cook, shared recipes and restaurant recommendations with real knowledge, and the entertaining ethos of those years clearly informs her later work.

Travel was the other great theme. Filming and wanderlust took her across the world, and she wrote about it with the eye of someone genuinely interested in a place rather than merely posing in it: the markets, the meals, the details. The throughline was a kind of joyful attentiveness: the idea that pleasure lies in noticing, and that a rich life is available to anyone willing to pay attention.

Fashion and beauty on The Tig

The Tig was also a style diary, and a quietly influential one. Meghan favoured the understated, investment-led wardrobe she would later carry into royal life: clean tailoring, good denim, a beautiful bag over a logo. It was on this pared-back, Californian-meets-classic aesthetic that she built the style following that would one day sell out British boutiques in minutes, as it did when she carried a Strathberry tote on one of her first royal engagements.

Beauty featured too, in the same considered spirit: a favourite serum, a good mist, the products she genuinely reached for rather than the ones she was paid to name. Chief among them was the Japanese skincare house Tatcha, a long-documented Meghan favourite whose dewy finish suited her glow perfectly. For the full edit, see our guide to Meghan’s beauty favourites from The Tig. Her pre-royal wardrobe, meanwhile, gets its own deep dive in Meghan’s pre-royal style: the Tig years.

Tig Talks: the women she championed

One of the blog’s most distinctive features was its interviews, often called “Tig Talks”, in which Meghan spoke with women she found inspiring, from actors and athletes to entrepreneurs and humanitarians. It was here that her interest in women’s empowerment, later such a defining thread of her public work, showed most clearly.

The conversations were generous and substance-led, giving space to other women’s stories rather than centring her own. In hindsight, they read almost as a rehearsal for the advocacy to come: a blogger using her small platform to lift up others, a habit that would scale up dramatically in the years that followed.

The end of The Tig, and what came after

The Tig closed in April 2017, some months before Meghan’s engagement to Prince Harry was announced that November. She signed off with a characteristically warm note to her readers, thanking them and encouraging them to keep travelling, keep cooking and keep the “Tig” spirit of curiosity alive.

The blog’s DNA never really disappeared, though. It simply changed form. The same instincts for food, entertaining, beauty and beautifully made things resurfaced years later in her lifestyle brand, As Ever, and in her wider work. The Tig was, in a sense, the first draft of a lifestyle sensibility she is still refining today.

Why The Tig still matters

The Tig endures in the imagination because it shows a version of the Duchess entirely on her own terms: writing what she liked, championing whom she admired, and building a small, genuine community around shared enthusiasms. It is a reminder that behind the public figure is a person with real tastes and a real voice.

For anyone curious about who Meghan was before the crown, it remains the best guide, and, happily, its recommendations still hold up. In the pieces that follow, we trace the threads it left behind: the wine, the wardrobe, the beauty edit and the reading list. Browse more of our Royal Figures stories to explore the lives behind the headlines.

Frequently asked questions

What was The Tig?

The Tig was Meghan Markle’s lifestyle blog, which she ran from 2014 to 2017 before joining the royal family. It covered food, travel, fashion, beauty and interviews with inspiring women, written in a warm, personal voice.

Why was Meghan’s blog called The Tig?

“Tig” was Meghan’s nickname for Tignanello, an Italian Super Tuscan wine she has described as the bottle that first made her truly understand wine. She used the word as shorthand for a moment of discovery, and named the blog after it.

When did The Tig start and end?

The Tig launched in 2014 and closed in April 2017, a few months before Meghan’s engagement to Prince Harry was announced in November 2017.

What did Meghan write about on The Tig?

She wrote about food and recipes, travel, fashion and beauty recommendations, and hosted interviews with women she admired. The blog reflected an aspirational but attainable approach to living well through small, considered choices.

Is The Tig still online?

No. Meghan closed The Tig in 2017 when she stepped back from her acting and blogging life ahead of joining the royal family. Its spirit later resurfaced in her lifestyle brand, As Ever.

What skincare did Meghan recommend on The Tig?

Meghan has long been associated with the Japanese skincare brand Tatcha, whose products suit her signature dewy, luminous look. Her documented beauty favourites are covered in our dedicated guide to Meghan’s beauty edit.

Details of The Tig are drawn from widely published accounts of the Duchess of Sussex’s pre-royal life; dates are as recorded in the public record.