MAUREEN CALLAHAN: Every American I know is saying the same thing after ‘disaster tourist’ Meghan delayed her Netflix show to ‘focus’ on the LA wildfires

If timing is everything, Meghan Markle has nothing.

Her small cooking/entertainment/gardening project for Netflix, which premieres January 15, has been postponed until March.

Meghan says it was her decision, made with respect for her fellow Californians devastated by the Los Angeles wildfires.

She issued a statement on Sunday afternoon – day five of this apocalypse. For this purpose gird up your loins.

“I’m grateful to my partners at Netflix” – those are your bosses, Meghan, not your colleagues – “for supporting me” – me, me, me, me, me – “in delaying the launch while we focus to the needs of those affected by the wildfires in my home state of California.”

It was vintage Meghan: verbose, vague, meaningless and completely unnecessary.

Because who really cares what Meghan Markle does or doesn’t do, especially now? Who cares about her ridiculous new Netflix show, which was already tone deaf before the fires?

Not the vast majority of Los Angelenos, that’s for sure.

Most American families are still struggling with this economy, but here is Meghan Marie playing Antionette in a rented mansion with her ladybug cupcakes and long hair hanging over these apparent edibles.

Rule #1: Tie your hair in the kitchen!

Oh, and she has some famous friends cheering as Meghan, dressed all in white, prepares dinner.

Really, who doesn’t brave inevitable spills and stains while wearing white?

And who made the call to postpone this turkey? Forgive me if I doubt whether Meghan did this unilaterally. More likely, I think, is that Netflix, knowing how damaging the optics would be, pressed pause on this flop-in-wait.

But that doesn’t really matter, because I certainly don’t believe in the premise that Meghan cares much about anyone but herself.

And the only thing likely to be cooked in that kitchen is Meghan’s reputation, scorched beyond repair.

This is a woman who not only ignores the feelings of her own family members, but also seems to delight in salting open wounds.

Oprah was the first salvo, with Meghan exuding victimhood when she suggested the royals were racists for preventing her from seeking therapy — even as her husband, along with Prince William and Kate, founded a mental health initiative — while Prince Philip was dying.

Could she and Prince Harry have changed the air date for that Oprah interview? Put the pin in that grenade?

As the late Queen Elizabeth quietly battled cancer, the Gruesome Twosome announced two more high-profile projects that revealed even more royal secrets.

“Harry & Meghan” — the Netflix docuseries in which Meghan mocked her bow to the queen as her simpleton husband sat silently, a pained expression on his face — premiered just three months after the queen died in December 2022.

Could that also be postponed? It was definitely not a time-sensitive project. After all, grabbing and groaning has no expiration date.

A month later came “Spare,” Harry’s chilling memoir about his frozen toddler, fantasies about his father’s murder, fisticuffs with William and reprinted text exchanges between Meghan and Kate — texts that only Meghan could have delivered, an obscene breach of trust.

And of course, last year Meghan – rather prematurely – dropped a trailer for her brand “American Riviera Orchard,” which saw her galloping around her $14 million estate in a ball gown.

That particular timeline is devastating.

January 17, 2024: Kate announces she has had major abdominal surgery and will be out of public life indefinitely – shocking news for a young mother of three, let alone the future queen.

February 5, 2024: Buckingham Palace announces that King Charles has been diagnosed with cancer.

March 14: Meghan drops her ‘ARO’ trailer.

March 22: Kate announces in a pre-recorded video message that stuns the world that she too has cancer and is undergoing chemotherapy.

You could say the Sussexes are haunted by bad timing, luck, coincidence – you name it. Or perhaps these disasters were ‘manifested’ by the Gruesome Twosome themselves, with all their dark energy and seething resentment. Karma always catches up.

It’s hard to wish well for two people who clearly tried to hurt their own families. Who continue with their empty, vain projects despite the health problems of major royals.

January 7, 2025: Meghan posts on Instagram that her dog and co-star in her new Netflix series, Guy, has passed away, but doesn’t say when. Hours later, the wildfires broke out in LA.

Here’s the problem: nothing these two do now will ever be looked upon kindly. Their little trip to visit wildfire survivors on Friday — they stepped out hours away in pristine Montecito, Meghan wearing an “LA” baseball cap and her most concerned expression — has been posted online.

Actress Justine Bateman called them ‘disaster tourists’.

“What a disgusting ‘photo op’ they made,” Bateman wrote. ‘They are ‘exploring the damage’? Are they politicians now?’

How unself-conscious they are, acting like royals even though, through their own machinations, they are no longer such, and doing all the things they said they had no interest in doing.

Meghan’s comment during her 2018 tour of Australia: ‘I can’t believe I’m not getting paid for this’ – months after being awarded a $39 million wedding.

Imagine if they had stayed. Harry and Meghan are expected to take on all kinds of royal duties and ceremonies while Charles and Kate recover.

Meghan, as an American-born working duchess, could have volunteered to go to LA during this time of crisis, to offer some hugs and spoon some soups. And it would have mattered.

Instead, she and Harry play a royal role.

Consider her red carpet appearance last October, in a deep red $6,000 Carolina Herrera dress, at a benefit for LA’s Children’s Hospital.

“There wasn’t much warmth from people when she arrived,” socialite Lizzie Cundy, who was present, told the Mail.

And of course, there was that uninvited appearance in Uvalde, Texas in 2022, after one of the worst school shootings in history.

Meghan showed up with a camera crew in tow, there in her “personal capacity as a mother,” her rep told People magazine.

The online reaction was swift and merciless. And it has ingrained a lasting suspicion among many Americans that Meghan Markle is only doing what is good for Meghan Markle.

So forgive me if I don’t believe she’s pausing her Netflix show for any reason other than to save her dented, rotting brand.

Really: there is no reason for Meghan to put that jam and jelly into production. America long ago stopped buying what it sells.