3 weeks Ago
Meghan Markle’s Pearl was about a young girl who learns life lessons from great women in history, and writer Mel Elliot alleges that her concept was similar. Meghan Markle has found herself at the centre of fresh plagiarism claims after British author Mel Elliott alleged that the Duchess’s cancelled Netflix animated series bore striking similarities to her own work. Announced in 2021 as part of Meghan and Prince Harry’s multi-million dollar deal with the streaming giant, the show was to follow a young girl learning life lessons from influential women in history.
Elliott, known for her Pearl Power children’s book series, which similarly centres on a young girl gaining confidence through stories of powerful women, claimed the parallels were “too great to ignore." She said she had reached out to both Netflix and Meghan’s team on two occasions but received no response. Speaking with Daily Mail, the author said, “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.
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." When Meghan Markle’s animated series was announced, Mel Elliott was shocked to see the resemblance. She felt the ideas in Meghan’s show were far too similar to be just a coincidence.
Through her legal team, she sent a formal letter to Meghan’s team, which mentioned, “The similarities between your proposed animation series and my client’s work appear to be too many and too striking to be mere coincidence. It also appears that there is a risk that your proposed series may infringe intellectual property rights belonging to my client and/or may give rise to a claim in passing off (or in the US, some form of unfair competition)." Mel Elliott’s third Pearl Power book was a huge success, as it was translated into multiple languages like Japanese, Mandarin, French and Spanish.
It gained popularity when Ryan Gosling took it to The Ellen DeGeneres Show and Victoria Beckham bought a copy for her daughter. Kate Winslet was also seen holding one of the books. Elliott mentioned that the world of arts and media can be very competitive, and it’s common for well-known people to copy the work of lesser-known creators.
She was disappointed that after raising her concerns, she never received a response from Netflix or Archewell. The author claims that she would have liked the opportunity to collaborate or contribute, but was saddened by the lack of acknowledgement. Elliot 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." Interestingly, back in 2019, Mel Elliott was reportedly in talks to adapt her Pearl Power books into a television series.
The project even caught the attention of tennis legend Billie Jean King, who expressed interest in the concept. However, despite the early enthusiasm, the adaptation plans eventually fizzled out and never materialised into a show..
