EastEnders Is Casting a New Character Called Meghan — and the Internet Ran With It
BBC Studios has issued a casting call for a new EastEnders series regular named Meghan, described as "confident, gorgeous and ready to cause chaos" — and the name has sent social media and gossip columns into overdrive.
The character is a woman aged around 30, described in the casting notice as "funny, fearless and fiercely loyal," "quick-witted and impossible to intimidate," and someone who never backs down from a confrontation, according to Variety. She belongs to the newly arrived Hawkins family — Gemma (Patricia Potter), her husband Ned (Jamie Bamber), and son Ryder (Felix Uff) — who were introduced as the estranged relatives of Nicola Mitchell and landed on Albert Square the previous week. Meghan is Gemma's daughter, and she will work as a senior member of the team behind a bar, presumably at The Old Vic, the soap's long-running pub. The casting call closes on 1 September.
What happened next was predictable. On 21 August 2026, The Guardian reported that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex may have returned to Britain for a "top secret" acting role. Digital Spy ran with a theory that Meghan, Duchess of Sussex was joining EastEnders to play a glamorous American arriving in the soap. The Independent published an opinion column the same day titled "Please keep Meghan away from British television," name-checking both EastEnders and Casualty.
None of those outlets is the casting authority. The BBC Studios call is for a fictional character named Meghan in a fictional family. The Duchess of Sussex is not named anywhere in the casting notice.
For EastEnders, the arrival of the Hawkins family and the search for Meghan adds a new branch to a show that has spent decades pulling viewers in with fresh households and the friction they bring. The soap has a habit of making real-world cameas part of its fabric: King Charles and Queen Camilla appeared in a 2022 Platinum Jubilee street party scene, and Queen Elizabeth II visited the set in 2001, though she did not appear on screen. Casting newcomer actors in headline-grabbing roles is also nothing new — West End performer Declan Bennett joined as Charlie Cotton in 2014, and Riley Carter Millington was cast in 2015 in what the BBC described as a first transgender role in a UK soap.
The deadline is tight. Actors have just over a week to put themselves forward. After 1 September, the production moves to whatever comes next: auditions, recalls, and a decision on who walks into Albert Square as Meghan Hawkins.
The duchess will not be among them — but the name alone has already done its work.
