Inside Meghan Markle's California Girlfriend Squad That Featured Billionaires and A-Listers

In 2023, Meghan Markle was surrounding herself with the perfect mix of successful women. It seems like Markle was focusing on being positive, healthy, and successful as she invested her time in an impressive group of extremely self-dependent women. Markle was born and raised in California, but she spent several years in Toronto, Canada, before moving to the UK after her wedding. With Markle and Prince Harry moving back to California, they settled in with their two kids and gained a new circle of friends.

Markle and Prince Harry were spotted heading out to dinner once with Gwyneth Paltrow and her husband, Brad Falchuk, as well as Cameron Diaz and her husband, Benji Madden, as per Page Six. Additionally, it was also speculated that the founder of the dating app Bumble, Whitney Wolfe Herd also accompanied them with her husband, Michael Herd. Paltrow and Markle both started out as actresses. Paltrow won an Oscar for Best Actress in 1999 for Shakespeare in Love. She also has a knack for wellness and has her own brand called Goop.

Markle founded The Tig, named after her favorite red wine, in 2014 while she was starring in the legal drama Suits. However, the blog has now gone defunct, even though the royal is working on her newest lifestyle brand, American Riviera Orchard.

Diaz, on the other hand, is making her return to the industry after almost a decade. The actress will be seen alongside Glenn Close and Jamie Foxx in the upcoming Netflix movie Back In Action. The actress has been a major star following the success of her movie Charlie's Angels. In the following years, Diaz branched out into the lifestyle sector and launched her own wine brand, which she named Avaline. The wine is vegan and has no added sugar. 

Herd became the world's youngest self-made billionaire when she went public with her dating app Bumble. The 33-year-old from Salt Lake City, Utah, launched the app in 2014 when she was just 25 years old. Herd is not only the founder of Bumble but also the co-founder of Tinder. She was its Vice President of Marketing until she left in 2014 and filed a lawsuit against Tinder for sexual harassment, as per The Guardian. She then worked on her idea of creating a female-friendly dating app and made Bumble what it is today.

"Honestly, my ambition comes from abusive relationships," Herd previously told Time. "I've never had this healthy male relationship until I created it. I engineered an ecosystem of healthy male relationships in my life." The app is a huge success, as we all know it, and it has added newer features, like vaccination badges, to dating profiles in a post-pandemic world. 

The Duchess of Sussex also made a surprise appearance on Instagram when she posed with Alliance of Moms co-founder Kelly McKee Zajfen. "As Mother’s Day approaches, I can’t help but think of my own #commUNITY of Motherhood. I instantly think of you Meg," the caption read. With Markle befriending so many strong businesswomen, it would be interesting for the world to see where she takes her own brand.

Editor's note: This article was originally published on May 17, 2023. It has since been updated.