When “Relatable” Women Become Painfully Unrelatable

Added: 2026-05-10

[00:00:00]Today I want to do something a little bit different because here in my channel we discuss and we analyze. So here is the thing. There is a very specific kind of public woman who comes into the culture at first and everybody is rooting for her. She's polished, inspiring, aspirational, just a little bit messy, just enough to seem human, but not messy enough to scare away, I don't know, commercial sponsors. She tells women like, "You can do this. I'm just like you. I struggle too." And for a while there, we believe her. We follow, we watch, we listen. And then one day, something completely shifts. Suddenly, the woman who built her brand on being relatable starts sounding less like inspirational bestie and more like the boss's boss at a woman empowerment lunchon. Charging insane amount of money if you just want to be in the same room and breathe the same air like during a VIP lunch. And that, my friends, right there is where Megan Marco and Rachel Hollis enter the chat because today we're talking about what happens when the relatable woman becomes painfully unrelatable. Let's get started.

[00:01:24]Hello everyone. I'm Star Chairs and this this right here is Julio. He is extra active today. Anyways, do you guys like my new cat? I bought it at the flea market like a year or two years ago before I started my channel and it turned out to be a pretty good buy because this cost me $2.

[00:01:45]And I'm just like Rachel and Megan with an LA cap.

[00:01:50]All right, we're going to get started.

[00:01:51]But if Julio gets a little bit naughty, I'm just going to go ahead and put him out of the room cuz he already scratched me as well. Now I know some of you are going to say in the comment section but star Megan Marco and Rachel Hollis are not the same and you are completely correct. They are not the same person.

[00:02:10]They have completely different backgrounds, different scandals, different brands, different audiences.

[00:02:16]But from a PR perspective and business branding, oh honey, they are sitting at the same table and laughing at us.

[00:02:28]One sold self-help books and the other one sold Royo Escape and Reinvention.

[00:02:35]One told women, "Wash your face." The other one keeps washing her brand and somehow the stain keeps coming back.

[00:02:45]And honestly, the reason this comparison is so interesting and I had to bring it up because both women had the same core asset at the beginning. People wanted to believe in them. Rachel Hollis had women believing that she was honest, messy, motivational, like the friend that you always wanted who would push you to become your best self. I think at one point she would call herself like your little your big sister. Meghan Markle on the other hand had people believing she was modern independent woman who married into the royal family and was going to bring some kind of diversity or freshness into an institution that desperately needed a software update.

[00:03:27]People rooted for both of these women and that is I don't know how to explain it. It makes the disappointment so fascinating to me and and I believe it's fascinating to the audience too because the public does not turn on people overnight. Absolutely not. Usually the public starts to give you a couple of like a few chances, then another chance, then another, and then eventually people realize, wait a minute. I just keep thinking, wait a minute, the brand is not authentic. She is not authentic.

[00:04:05]This is all marketing. And once the audience sees through that, through your facade, your brand will start collapsing. And it is very hard to come back to from that. These two women seem to have forgotten one tiny tiny little detail about staying relevant and keeping their luxury lifestyle afloat.

[00:04:25]They still need us. the general public to buy what they're selling. So, yes, Meghan Markle and Rachel Hollis both appear to be in the awkward, please support my empire era, allegedly dealing with money pressures and pushing products and promoting events and trying their best to fill their venues that they're selling. How funny is that? Like you cannot roll your eyes at regular people and then turn around and beg us to buy your tickets or your spread that you keep calling jam to fund your lifestyle. Both of these women had moments where they were just so easy to root for. Rachel Hollis came into the mainstream with this very digestible message. Stop apologizing. Stop making excuses.

[00:05:15]Chase your dreams and build the life you want. Her book, Girl, Wash Your Face, became a huge self-hit and she built an empire around the motivational content, even like podcast books and her personal story. And honestly, the time that it was released was like 2018 where she claimed to be like a Christian and all and all the time. And at that time, a lot of motivational speakers were at their prime. So when someone comes along and says, "Girl, you can do this." It it felt powerful back in like 2018 because Rachel's brand worked because she could sound like the woman who had it all figured out but was still close enough to the struggle for us to understand her and for her to understand us. Julio even though she married rich that's another thing that they have in common. They married rich but Rachel's brand was not perfect. It was just like a like like a just above you enough to inspire you. Megan entered the royal story like a real life Netflix pitch. An actress an American actress divorced biracial humanitarian branding lifestyle blog falls in love with the prince Harry joins the British family. The story had everything. Romance, drama, and history.

[00:06:42]a woman entering an old institution and potentially changing it from within.

[00:06:50]I say changing it like as loosely as possible. People just wanted something different because for many people Megan just represented like something fresh and that was it because she was not born into the world of royalty. She was not trained. She had her own career and her own voice and her own image. So, at the beginning, a lot of people wanted this to work out. People rooted for her and a lot of people rooted for Megan to be the woman who came into the royal family and brought something just modern and different and relatable. Even after she and Harry left the royal duty, some people still rooted for them. Some, not all of them. The story was still they wanted freedom, they wanted privacy, and they wanted safety. They wanted to build something meaningful away from the pressure of royal life. And again, this is relatable on the surface, but the problem here is relatability is a very, very delicate brand asset. It is not something you can just randomly claim.

[00:07:57]You have to continue earning it. And both Rachel Hollis and Meghan Markle made the same mistake. They treated reliability like a costume. They could put it on when they were selling something. Let me just say this, the relatable brand is one of the most profitable brands in modern media. But social media has definitely turned it into an entire industry. The formula is super simple. Take a woman, take a man, it doesn't matter. As long as they're attractive and successful and polish them enough to be aspirational, then you make them seem accessible. And both Megan and Rachel did this. They both cried on camera. They both talked about motherhood, talked about the future, and both of them showed themselves without makeup, but still good lighting and still with a filter, which by the way, I just saw an article that was released. Let me show it to you guys. This article right here, it says, "The Fresh Face Royals challenging traditional beauty standards after Sarah Sara Tindo went makeup free at Bad Mitten Horse Trials." Trails or trials? Trials? I don't know.

[00:09:13]Like, what are you talking about?

[00:09:17]What are you talking about?

[00:09:19]Obviously, her eyebrows are done. That's not makeup free. Obviously, she's got mascara.

[00:09:28]That's not makeup free. And then obviously I could see like a little bit of something here like bronzer.

[00:09:37]She's bronzed or tan. It could be tan like having tanner and that that helps a lot being tan. So I'm like, okay, she was not completely No. And then they showed this picture of Megan and I'm just thinking um do you know how many filters this photo has? Because again her eyebrows are done and she looks like she has a light coat of mascara but a huge blurry blurry or gauian blur filter on. So do not tell me makeup free. I really dislike this article because it makes us seem like we want to aspire to look like this. I'm like, no, no. We can obviously see that they have makeup on or that they have a huge filter on their camera. So, I hated this article. I did.

[00:10:33]I really did. All right. So, now back to what we were talking about. I just needed to go off to the side cuz when I saw that, I'm like, here we go again.

[00:10:41]another article of trying to make women relatable because they have no makeup on or I'm like do you know how many times women wear makeup as soon as we get home we take it off or it's kind of like the bra like we can't wait to take it off some of us don't even wear makeup I only wear makeup when I am on camera that's it any other time I'm like I don't need it I don't want it even though I love makeup I love to wear makeup and like I told you guys before all I really use is like Essence makeup it's like the most economic makeup There is except for what is it? I'm looking at my makeup right here. My concealer. One's E.L.F. and one is expensive. I I don't remember what.

[00:11:21]Oh, Hourglass, I think. I don't remember. Maybe one of these days we can do like a makeup video while I'm talking. If you guys want to, I won't put you through that if you don't want me to. But anyways, where did we leave off? Um, the problem with the message of Rachel and Megan is that they kept saying like, "I'm just like you." But their behavior is like something completely different. Like, "I'm actually I actually think I'm above you." And we saw that with Megan many times. And this is where like us, the audience, we're just looking at her like, "Okay, woman. Whatever you say, we're just going to get out of your way, but we're going to critique you." And Rachel Hollis had probably one of the biggest public image collapses. That's why I want to put her in with with Megan because it became heavily criticized after a Tik Tok controversy involving comments about having someone clean her house. Let's watch it, shall we? Let me show it to you all.

[00:12:22]I'm sorry. When this came out, I replayed this over and over again and I vowed I would never ever ever wear authenticity as a costume. I would always be myself.

[00:12:35]Let me play this. Okay. Yesterday I was doing a live stream and I mentioned that there's this sweet woman who comes to my house twice a week and cleans. She's my my house cleaner. She cleans the toilets. Someone commented and said, "You are privileged AF. And I was like, you're right. I'm super freaking privileged, but also >> But also, again, I need to stop it there because why do you say that she comes and cleans the toilets?

[00:13:08]She does a lot more than that. That woman probably cleans your entire house, not just toilets. You made it sound so derogatory by saying, "She cleans my toilets." When I watched this, I was like, "Oh my goodness." Not everybody thought this, but I sure did. I was like, "Did you just make this so derogatory towards your cleaning woman?"

[00:13:29]Cuz she cleans more than your toilet.

[00:13:31]She cleans your entire house, I'm sure.

[00:13:33]But you made sure to say your toilets like where you go and defecate. How?

[00:13:40]Like that was tacky. That was tacky.

[00:13:43]Anyways, let's continue. And also I love the >> but also so annoying >> privileged but also >> but also >> my ass off to have the money to have someone come twice a week and clean my toilets. And I told her that and then she said, "Well, you're unrelatable.

[00:14:05]What is it about me that made you think I want to be relatable?" No, sis.

[00:14:11]Literally everything I do in my life is to live a life that most people can't relate to. Most people won't work this hard. Most people won't get up at 4:00 a.m.

[00:14:22]>> Most people.

[00:14:24]So who are you trying to sell to if it's not most people? So you're saying that nobody can do what you do unless they mimic you? Like that makes no sense.

[00:14:36]>> Most people won't fail publicly again and again.

[00:14:40]>> Megan will. Megan will Megan Will >> just to reach the top of the mountain.

[00:14:45]Literally every woman I admire in history was unrelatable. If my life is relatable to most people, I'm doing it wrong.

[00:14:55]Oh my god, I almost choked on my water there. Let's leave her on here because the backlash on this video intensified because people felt her response came across as super privileged, super dismissive and disconnected from her entire audience that she had built her brand like her brand around. Coverage at the time described her criticism as white privilege in an apology that many felt did not take like full accountability. She tried, but she really did not. Because you have to remember, Rachel's brand was built on being the woman, your older sister, who tells you the hard truth. So, her brand could not absorb that hit. Anyways, that right there was a huge PR problem because if your entire business is based on telling people or telling women to take accountability, then when you mess up, then you have to take accountability.

[00:15:55]and an at an Olympic level. You cannot sell accountability and then respond to criticism like actually you misunderstood me. No, that's not how it works. And this is where Megan Marco has a very similar problem just in a different elevated style because Megan's brand is not built like on tough love accountability. Her brand is built more on emotional truth. healing and empowerment and privacy and authenticity.

[00:16:30]When I do this, it it's like I'm saying it as loosey as loose as possible because I don't believe most of that because people have criticized Megan over and over again and the contradictions of her image like wanting privacy but constantly using controlled glimpses of her children or her life and wanting to be seen as a serious business humanitarian while also selling lifestyle products tied to luxury.

[00:17:00]aesthetics. The response is rarely direct accountability. It's usually she pivots and then she talks to People magazine so they can put something out like a little excerpt so she will not apologize. And honestly, from a PR perspective, this is exhausting to hear and to listen and to watch because the audiences, you and I, we are not stupid. People can understand that privacy does not mean invisibility.

[00:17:30]People can understand that public figures may share some things but not all things because we all like to protect some things famous or not. But what people do not like is when the rules keep changing depending on what benefits the brand. And we have to remember that both brands have built their brands around some kind of value.

[00:17:55]Like Rachel's, it's always accountability, ambition, and honesty.

[00:18:00]Megan's is more like elevation, privacy, and family, even though she has disowned everybody in her family. So when your public actions do not match your public values, the audience does not agree with you. They will obviously feel duped by you and they will lose trust, walk away and not buy your products. And that is the main concern these two women are currently facing because they want to keep your money, my money, any money, because they want to keep the lifestyle.

[00:18:37]But they keep forgetting that the public can see right through their branding.

[00:18:42]I want to talk about something and it's not to offend anybody. It's because these two women have this this in common. It's about the rich woman lecture problem because this is one of the biggest reasons both of the brands started to anger people. Let me just say that there is nothing wrong with being wealthy. Absolutely not. Or marrying into wealth. Okay, let's get that clear and out of the way. And I understand like all of us, we need to make money or we want to make money on our own. But there's a huge difference between saying here's how I build something and here's what might help you versus your life is not where you want it to be because you are not trying hard enough. Oh, and that second message hits very differently when it comes from someone with staff, money, connections, child care, PR help, assistance, a rich husband, and media access. Because Rachel Hollis's motivational brand often leaned into personal responsibility and personal responsibility can be powerful, but honestly she married Dave Hollis and Dave had money when they got married. I think he was CEO or something of a studio. And Megan's the same way because she married a prince. He came with some kind of money.

[00:20:11]Not nickels and dimes like everybody else. Like yours truly right here. But she also did have some of her own. Like she had celebrity access right after the royal titles. She had media coverage which not all of us get media coverage.

[00:20:27]Like she was not a normal woman. She had more access to things than anybody else than any other normal person. These two women also have done something very similar. They have done the most dangerous thing a public figure can do is turn a marriage into a brand. Rachel Hollis and Dave Hollis became a couple brand. Their relationship, family, and marriage advice were part of the public facing empire. Then when they announced their divorce in 2020, many followers just felt blindsided because they had just held a marriage council or a marriage, what is it called? Seminar.

[00:21:10]They had sold tickets to it. And then that same year in 2020, they filed for divorce. Like are you kidding me? Can those people get refunds? That's how I felt when I saw that. I was like, um, I would have been asking for a refund. And the thing that I don't understand, why would anybody go for marriage advice from someone who is not a psychologist, not certify?

[00:21:36]They haven't even been married for 25 or 50 years to to give advice that they have survived the worst of the worst or enjoyed the best of the best. Like they didn't make it. I would say 25 to 50 years is a good way to give advice. I don't know. That's just me though because 25 years that is a long time to be married. You have seen and been through it. Now with Megan and Harry, it is not the same situation because they're still married, but the brand is similar. Their relationship is the foundation of the Sussex brand, the love story, the escape that they keep talking about, the us against the world, the handhold. Oh my god, the handholding.

[00:22:20]Yeah, I forgot about the handholding.

[00:22:22]the shared victim narrative, the we had to leave to protect our families and we want the titles. That's all I can hear.

[00:22:30]We want the titles. That is like their core product. But without the love story, what is the Sussex brand seriously like what what would it be?

[00:22:41]That is why every appearance and every interview, every separate project, every awkward moment, the brand tends to pivot to something else. It's like, "Oh, don't look over here. Look over there. Don't look over there. Look over here."

[00:22:56]Because they have trained the audience to read the relationship as a story. And this is the warning for any creator or public figure. Be careful when you use your relationship as proof of your wisdom because once the public buys into your relationship as part of the brand, they will also going to expect updates when the brand starts glitching aka when you have problems.

[00:23:25]Now I think both these women should understand the value of authenticity.

[00:23:30]But understanding the market value of authenticity of authenticity is not the same thing as being authentic.

[00:23:38]Authentic cannot feel like a wardrobe change because audiences have gotten very very good at spotting fake realness. Like Megan's overly controlled every Instagram post, photo, and description. Everything just feels so managed and the children are private but also visible when she needs to sell something. Now if we zoom out because Megan and Rachel are not just individual case studies, they are part of a larger cultural shift. The girl boss era aged badly in my opinion. And Rachel Hollis is a is very much tied to that era in 2010s where it was full of hustle messaging, dream boards, boss babes, quotes, conferences, planners, morning routines, like no excuses, build your empire, manifest, stop apologizing.

[00:24:37]And for a while, that messaging worked.

[00:24:39]It was it was the time to become one of those people. and Rachel became the face of that shift because her brand was strongly tied to individual achievement and self-help confidence. Now, Megan is not exactly a girl boss in the same way.

[00:24:57]She's more like the elevated rebrand of girl boss. Like instead of hustle harder, it's live softer. Instead of a conference, it's intimate lunchons.

[00:25:10]But the underlying idea is still very similar. A wealthy woman packages her lifestyle as a lesson. We have seen this before. We have. And that is why Megan's lifestyle branding gets so much scrutiny because people are not just reacting to the jam or the spread. They're reacting to a whole era of wealthy women telling other women that buying into their lifestyle is somehow a path to meaning.

[00:25:39]And I'm sorry, but if if your empowerment comes from a limited edition candle with a handwritten note in a press roll out on People magazine, no thank you. But I have follow-up questions. And one of those questions would be about apologies because Rachel Hollis had a very clear apology problem.

[00:26:01]After the unrelatable backlash, she issued apologies that were criticized for deflecting the blame. Instead of understanding why people were upset, she could have just said, "I was wrong. I see why this hurt people. I need to sit with that." Or something like that. That kind of apology is hard for people's ego, but if you're if that's your brand, you need to do it. And for Megan, she has a completely different apology problem. She does not do that directly because she does not like criticism from what people are saying. Instead, the pattern feels more like a narrative replacement. Don't look over here, look over there type thing. But in both of these cases, audiences eventually started asking, are they actually relatable?

[00:26:52]Am I being lied to? Are they just using relatability as a sales tactic? And this is why Megan and Rachel are both struggling in my opinion for money to sell venues to sell their products. The issues now that they failed once the issues that the contradictions became part of the brand and the failures continued even after they saw that it wasn't working. And I think the important message here is that over time both story reminds us of something very important. People do not turn on public figures just because they are successful. No, people turn when they feel insulted. So when Rachel Hollis says she is not relatable, people do not just hear her comment, they hear the mask slip. When Megan says privacy, but then uses carefully selected family photos or moments to support her public image, people do not see that photo. They see a strategy.

[00:28:00]And once the audience sees your patterns and sees your strategy, the magic is gone completely cuz the audience already knows your pattern and they're just waiting for it. And everything in their facade starts collapsing. And the collapse happens when the audiences stop believing the story that you are telling about yourself. And that is why this comparison matters because Megan and Rachel both have proved that that you can have a platform, the money, the audience, the media, the powerful story and the perfect lighting. But if people stop trusting in the person behind the brand, the whole thing starts to feel fake and starts collapsing. And honestly, this is why I love looking at these stories through the lens of PR and business because this is not just about celebrity drama. This is about branding and audience psychology. Those are my thoughts, guys. Let me know what you think in the comment section below. And if you enjoyed this breakdown, make sure to subscribe before you leave. And if you can hype this video so we can reach a lot more people. Again, thank you very much for watching and I will see you in my next video. Bye. Yeah. Julio, let's go.