British author Mel Elliott shared that Meghan Markle’s proposed Netflix animation series Pearl had similarities “too great to ignore” with her own children’s book series Pearl Power.
Meghan had a show lined up with Netflix
The Duchess had an animation show called Pearl lined up in July 2021. She was set to co-produce the show with Elton John’s husband, David Furnish, before Netflix eventually canceled it before taking it to production.
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An author accused her of plagiarism at the time
Mel Elliott told the Daily Mail that Meghan’s Pearl had similarities “too great for me to ignore” to her own children’s book series, Pearl Power, which came out years before Meghan announced her show.
There are similarities in the premise
Other than the similarity in names, there are also similarities in the concept. Pearl is about a little girl who “learns to step into her power and finds inspiration from influential women throughout history.”
While Elliott’s book series didn’t initially feature famous female figures, her books are about female empowerment.
Elliott started planning a show for her books in 2018
Years before Meghan planned Pearl, in 2018, Elliott had been working on turning her book series into an animation show.
Elliott’s idea for the show was that each episode would start with Pearl presenting a school project about a famous and inspiring woman in history, which is similar to Meghan’s Pearl.
She spoke to the media about it
Elliott told the Daily Mail, “Meghan is a feminist who sticks up for other women, so I was disappointed and confused to see how similar Netflix’s proposed show Pearl was to my own Pearl Power, who had been created seven years earlier.”
She spoke about competition
“Of course, I can’t know if anyone on her team had seen it and been inspired by it, but the similarities were too great for me to ignore,” Elliott continued.
“The world of arts and media are very competitive, and I’m afraid it’s quite common for powerful people to rip off the work of less well-known creatives — although I’m not saying that’s what happened here.”
Elliott’s team tried contacting Meghan’s
Elliott said that her lawyers tried to contact Meghan in July 2021 by sending her a letter via her charity organization, the Archewell Foundation, but didn’t hear back.
The author also tried following up with personal messages to Archewell and Netflix in October 2021 and February 2022. But the author still didn’t hear anything back.
The show was later canceled
In May 2022, Netflix announced it wouldn’t be taking on Meghan’s Pearl, citing that they were just scaling back on animated shows at the time, with other children’s shows getting dropped around the same time.
Elliott told the outlet that she was glad the show was dropped.
She spoke about her reaction to the news
Elliott said, “I am glad that Meghan’s Pearl show was dropped, and I hope that I had something to do with it. But what I really wanted was for it to have gone ahead, and for me to have been acknowledged or invited to work as a collaborator on the series.”
“Pearl was my dream project and now, annoyingly, if I reprise my own creation, it’s going to look like I have copied the idea from someone else,” she added.
Elliott said she would’ve loved working with Meghan
“What saddened me most is that, having brought the similarities between my Pearl and Meghan’s Pearl to the attention of Netflix and Archewell, my objection was never acknowledged,” Elliott added. “Neither Netflix nor Archewell responded to me when I would have loved to have contributed and collaborated.”
Elliott ended by saying that she didn’t publicly claim plagiarism at the time to avoid public scrutiny.
