Call me crazy, but I actually enjoy Tom Sykes’ descent into full-on deranger lunacy. I’ve read Sykes’ stuff for years, back when he covered the royals exclusively for the Daily Beast. Back in the day, he actually had some decent exclusives and he could reveal more about how the royal sausage is made because he worked for an American outlet. But ever since he started his Substack and his YouTube channel, everything about his royal analysis has changed. The multiple rants about Meghan’s “Taco Bell” kitchen were the most recent peak of his new anti-Sussex perspective. But his new Substack piece is pretty wild.
So, there’s a new, San Francisco-based kids’ clothing brand called Lil Olives. On Lil Olives’ site, they’re using a child model with red hair and the child is posed with her face mostly shielded from the camera. The aesthetic is absolutely borrowed from the Duchess of Sussex’s Instagram. Or, as Sykes hysterically writes: “Meghan Markle’s Brand Faces Speculation as Lilibet-Like Image Appears in Doppelgänger Clothing Brand; Questions have emerged online after a Substack post suggested a child model used in a children’s clothing brand bore a resemblance to Princess Lilibet.” Yes, Sykes wrote a multi-page rant about how a kids’ clothing company used a ginger child as a model. I’m not joking.
Meghan Markle’s As Ever brand appears to have a doppelgänger, with strikingly similar branding and imagery that bears an uncanny resemblance to photos of her daughter.
Award-winning journalist Paula Froelich may have unearthed something that would have been better left unnoticed for the Duchess of Sussex. On Sunday, writing on her Uncensored Substack, she highlighted similarities between Meghan’s Montecito-based As Ever brand and San Francisco children’s clothing label Lil Olives, founded by Danya Ghutta.
Froelich compared the mission statements of the two brands, suggesting both read as though they may have been AI-generated, and noting that automated analysis flagged the texts as “almost exact” clones of one another, differing only in the products they promote.
But it’s the visual overlap that has drawn the most attention. A child model featured in Lil Olives’ “Buttercream Bloom Dress,” whose face is mostly hidden, except for one image in sunglasses, was flagged as having a near-identical look to Princess Lilibet, who has appeared in many photographs on Meghan’s Instagram, including a post last week for her fifth birthday.
The questions practically write themselves: is Lilibet being used as inspiration for another brand? Is this an AI-generated likeness? Is one brand borrowing from the other? Or is it simply an extraordinary coincidence?
The Royalist has reached out to both brands for comment, but Lil Olives has since appeared to signal at least a partial response by removing the images in question from its website following Froelich’s post, only adding to the list of questions and speculation.
…Lil Olives was created in August 2025, suggesting its founder may have been influenced by As Ever, which was launched a year earlier in 2024. That, in turn, has prompted the question of whether any of that inspiration extended beyond branding and into imagery connected to Meghan’s daughter.
To be clear, there is no evidence that Lil Olives used Lilibet’s likeness, and it would be inappropriate to speculate on that point given the legal and ethical sensitivities involved. It has also not been established that Lilibet modeled for the brand. If either were ever proven, it would obviously elevate the situation significantly.
How can another little girl with red hair exist? I thought Princess Lili Diana was the only ginger girl in the entire United States!!! IT MUST BE AI! Meghan must have allowed Lili to model for a kids’ clothing company! Whatever this is, it’s bad news for Meghan, because EVERYTHING must be bad news for Meghan! Meghan thought that she had the only redheaded child in existence, well, joke’s on her! Meghan thought that she had cultivated an exclusive Millenial-core aesthetic which no one would ever copy, joke’s on her again!
PS… You can see the Lil Olives site here. They have tons of images of kids modeling their clothes and very few of the pics even seem inspired by Meghan? These people are so weird.
Photos courtesy of Meghan’s Instagram.
