Meghan Markle Bizarrely Criticized Over Post Hours After Dolly Parton's Death Was Announced—And Fans Are Baffled

At this point, “Now why am I in it?” might as well be Meghan Markle’s unofficial motto. And this week, the answer somehow involves Dolly Parton and a jar of apple butter.

Stay with me.

On Tuesday, the sad news broke that the music legend and all-around icon had died at age 80. Just hours later, Markle’s lifestyle brand, As Ever, announced its Spiced Apple Butter.

Surely, those two things have absolutely nothing to do with each other, right? Well, someone forgot to tell OK! magazine.

The UK outlet responded with the following headline:

“Meghan Markle slammed over new apple butter launch just hours after Dolly Parton’s death.”

Now, if this all sounds completely unhinged, you must be new here.

Ever since Markle married Prince Harry in 2018, she has somehow found herself at the center of outrage over everything from eating avocados to wishing her then-6-year-old nephew Prince George a happy birthday on Instagram.

Then, in October, Markle faced intense backlash for posting an Instagram video driving through Paris while attending Fashion Week because Princess Diana died in a fatal car crash in the city in 1997.

Avocados. A child’s birthday. Driving through Paris. And now apple butter. At this point, Markle could check the weather and somehow be blamed for the rain.

The Outlet continued the blame fest:

“Meghan announced her new Spiced Apple Butter roughly four hours after news broke that Dolly had died at 80. As tributes poured in for the country legend, critics questioned why the product announcement wasn’t postponed. 👑🤔”

Now, you may be wondering who actually “slammed” Markle and what they said. Same. At the time of writing, there doesn’t appear to be a corresponding article on OK! magazine’s website offering any further insight.

You can see the post in question here:

Once again, the outrage feels wildly misplaced. The president, who apparently has too much time on his teeny tiny hands these days, posted an AI-generated slop image of himself with Parton despite the two never having met—yet somehow Markle’s apple butter became the controversy.

And it’s hard to ignore who keeps attracting this level of scrutiny: an American, an actor, a divorcee and, of course, a mixed-race woman. At some point, you have to wonder why the criticism so reliably finds its way back to her.

Plenty of people online were asking the exact same question:

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@josephinehicksmomof3/Instagram

@min.ti15/Instagram

@gabyreyna1212/Instagram

@cecile.cazenave/Instagram

@benjwa82/Instagram

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u/quelle_crevecoeur/Reddit

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u/atmosphericentry/Reddit

u/AlmostThere4321/Reddit; u/deev718/Reddit

Meanwhile, away from headlines about Markle, Parton’s family gathered privately to say goodbye.

The beloved singer was laid to rest at Woodlawn Memorial Park and Mausoleum in Nashville, Tennessee, during a private service attended only by immediate family on Friday, August 28, according to her great-niece, Lainey Parton.

Lainey marked the emotional farewell in an Instagram post:

What Parton leaves behind is far more deserving of attention.

She wrote more than 3,000 songs, gave more than 330 million books to children through her Imagination Library and donated $1 million toward early COVID-19 vaccine research. Through it all, she showed that a woman could be powerful, talented, and wildly successful while still leading with kindness.

That kindness extended to Prince Harry and Markle, with Parton publicly sending the couple her best wishes when they welcomed their first child amid intense and often controversial press coverage. She also supported women in business, which makes invoking her death to criticize Markle for daring to run one especially bizarre.

So maybe, just maybe, that extraordinary legacy—not Markle’s brand's social media post—is what deserves the headline.