TLDR
Meghan Markle quietly expanded her Montecito mahjong circle, welcoming longtime friend and grieving mom Kelly McKee Zajfen into her growing “Maj Squad.”
What looks like an easy California game night is carrying very different weight for the Duchess of Sussex. Over the weekend, Meghan hosted another round of mahjong at home, and a new face appeared at the table. Kelly McKee Zajfen, a former model, nonprofit co-founder, and one of Meghan’s closest friends, has now been pulled into the duchess’s aptly nicknamed “Maj Squad.”
Mahjong has quietly become one of Meghan’s signature rituals in Montecito. On the first series of her lifestyle show “With Love, Meghan,” she invited fashion designer Tracy Robbins, cosmetics entrepreneur Victoria Jackson, and literary agent Jennifer Rudolph Walsh to play, folding tacos and cocktails into the tiles-and-strategy evening. The recurring games have evolved into a soft-focus portrait of Meghan’s post-royal life, built around curated girlfriends, West Coast ease, and a firmly chosen inner circle.
This latest gathering widened that circle. Kelly, a fellow California mother and co-founder of Alliance of Moms, shared an outdoor snapshot of the game, complete with cocktails and sunshine. She thanked “M & T,” widely understood as Meghan and Tracy Robbins, and joked in her caption, “Ugh, oh. Another one has been taken by the Maj bug. That being me.” She called it “A perfect day” with her ladies and “much needed mama time,” before promising to go “back to the babes” and start obsessing over her next game. Tracy reposted the image and wrote, “You are a natural. Love you. Miss you already.”
Mahjong is not the only unlikely hobby reshaping the image of Sussex homes. Last year, Vicky Tsai, the Tatcha founder and a close friend, told People that both Meghan and Prince Harry now play weekly. “She is really creative and curious. She enjoys things that you would not expect, like mahjong,” Tsai said, adding that Meghan is “constantly trying to pull” her into the group. Tsai also revealed that Meghan and Harry are “pretty passionate” about pickleball and are trying to recruit her for that too.
The new Maj Squad photo landed shortly after another intimate glimpse into Meghan and Kelly’s bond. Ahead of the royal family’s appearance at Trooping the Colour, Meghan posted an image of herself visiting Kelly and her newborn son, Jack Oliver Zajfen. Meghan, who usually shields Archie and Lilibet’s faces online, allowed Jack’s features to be seen as she cradled him and kissed his head. Alongside the image, she wrote, “We know I love a redhead,” then added a wry clarification: “And let me stop you before they start, no it is not his baby.”
That lightness sits against a painful history. Kelly announced Jack’s pregnancy after the death of her nine-year-old son, George, in July 2022 following a viral illness. In a personal essay for People, she described her loss as “traumatic, painful and very vivid,” recalling, “It happened very quickly.” She wrote that the family had “no idea” George would be gone just 12 hours after arriving at the hospital, and admitted that it feels “impossible”> to know how to survive this kind of grief.
When George died, Meghan and Harry quietly donated $5,000 to a GoFundMe in his honor, attributing the gift to Archie and Lilibet. Kelly later thanked them publicly on Instagram, calling the couple “such a guiding light for our family” and praising not only their friendship but also Archewell’s work. She said she was “in awe” of their commitment to community and to friendship.
Since then, the Sussexes have turned up for Kelly’s charity events and initiatives in George’s memory, including a tennis tournament held around Prince Harry’s 40th birthday. The latest image of Kelly, settled at Meghan’s mahjong table, feels like a continuation of that support. It is not only a social upgrade into the duchess’s inner circle. It is a quiet, public acknowledgment that grief, new life, and chosen family now sit side by side in Meghan’s world, one tile at a time.
What stands out more to you, Meghan’s carefully curated Montecito game nights or the way she shows up for friends like Kelly behind the scenes?
