BBC to air Meghan’s TV drama Suits
The BBC is to air the TV drama Suits, which stars the Duchess of Sussex, after acquiring it from a US broadcaster.
The Duchess plays attorney Rachel Zane in the legal drama, which she quit after meeting Prince Harry.
She joined the show during the first series in 2011, playing a paralegal who was yet to pass the bar exam, and departed after series seven.
The BBC has acquired the show from NBCUniversal and will screen it on its television channels and as a boxset on iPlayer. It will be available later this year, at a date to be confirmed.
Sue Deeks, the head of BBC programme acquisition, called Suits “smart and stylish” and “star-studded”, saying she was delighted to bring it to BBC viewers.
When the drama was shown on Netflix last year, it set a new US streaming record and was watched for 57.7 billion minutes, according to Nielsen.
The Duchess has described her Suits co-stars as “family” and invited several of them to attend her wedding at Windsor. They included Patrick J Adams, who played her on-screen love interest Mike Ross.
Suits catapulted the Duchess to fame after years of trying to make in the industry.
“I’ve done so many pilots that never saw the light of day and we didn’t know what Suits was going to become at the time,” she said in 2017.
“Now there’s security and police and fans and tears when we’re filming, so it’s been such a wild ride for all of us.”
She quit the show - and her acting career - after meeting Prince Harry, saying in their first joint interview: “I don’t see it as giving anything up. I just see it as change. It’s a new chapter, right?
“I’ve ticked this box, and I feel very proud of the work I’ve done there, and now it’s time to work with [Harry] as a team.”
Her final appearance as Rachel was in the series seven finale, where her character married Mike and the couple moved to Seattle. The fictional wedding aired less than a month before her wedding to Prince Harry.
The BBC has acquired all nine seasons of the show. A later episode contains a joke about the Duchess’s new life. Mike returned for a guest appearance and was asked how Rachel was doing. “If I told you how good, you probably wouldn’t believe me,” he replied.
The show was never nominated for an Emmy or Golden Globe, but had a devoted fan base.
The TV critic for Time magazine said: “You can look down at your computer to answer emails for a 40-minute span, look back up again, and you haven’t missed anything particularly significant. And yet something dramatic and entertaining is happening.”
