Sussex empire ‘crumbling’ as Prince Harry and Meghan Markle lose Spotify, Netflix deals

Leaving aside the abject, soul-shaking loss of his mother, there were the bad days of his parents’ rancorous split, when he was yanked off the front line and dumped in an army desk job, when his relationships with Chelsy Davy and Cressida Bonas tanked because they didn’t fancy the misery of royal wifedom and that one very bad day when he realised that his sink was suddenly full of strands of red hair.

Now comes one of the very worst of bad days that Aitch has had in years, with him losing up to $18 million in one fell swoop and with fears that he and wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex’s post-Megxit “empire” is “crumbling”.

The first domino to fall came on Friday when Spotify pulled the plug on its $29 million deal with the Sussexes and the second domino appeared to be teetering when it was reported that Netflix is “unlikely to renew” their contract with the royal recalcitrants.

It’s something of an indication of how swiftly the Sussexes’ fortunes appear to be shifting that one report has even thrown up the “B” word for the first time – broke – with a source “stressing” to Page Six that the duke and duchess are “not broke”.

Well, I’m sure that assurance will really warm the cockles of their bank manager’s heart.

(Orlando Bloom might want to get that fiver back from Harry he lent him when the neighbours went out for root beer floats).

But let’s start at the beginning when, late last week, in a piece of news about as startling as finding out that the princesses York have a shared walk-in fascinator annex, that Spotify was done with the Sussexes’ indolent lack of output.

While Meghan had delivered a 12-part podcast series called Archetypes last year, a self-regarding orgy of Californian-ese word salad that couldn’t even be saved by a roster of starry guests like Serena Williams and Mariah Carey, that was pretty much it.

Despite Harry being a part of the deal, the duke never once managed to actually release a single program of his own, instead following in the centuries of tradition of royal spares being better for combining both idleness and a pervading aura of malcontent.

Within a hot minute of the streamer confirming they had consciously uncoupled from the Sussexes, Spotify’s Head of Podcast Innovation and Monetisation Bill Simmons decided to unleash on the couple, calling them “”f***king grifters”.

Simmons also revealed an abortive attempt to help the duke, saying, “I gotta get drunk one night and tell the story of this Zoom I had with Harry to try to help him with a podcast idea. It’s one of my best stories”.

Then, faster than Harry could stream some soothing whale noises or turn up Iron Maiden to do some cathartic headbanging in their guesthouse, entertainment and royal insiders were queuing up to spell out how parlous things are for Brand Sussex right now.

One industry source told Page Six: “I think they have come off as being lazy and difficult”.

In the Sun, former Harry biographer Angela Levin popped up to say that the duke and duchess’ “empire” is “crumbling” and that “people are fed up with them now”.

In the Daily Mail, PR guru Mark Borkowski said: “The air is going out of their much-hyped balloon … Their star is really falling. It is not a good day for the long-term brand of Meghan and Harry”.

Also in the Mail, brand and culture expert Nick Ede said: “It looks like Meghan’s brand isn’t such a box office winner and I can see a lot of other businesses following suit”.

In the Times, the paper’s podcast reviewer mused that for Spotify to have pulled the plug, he “suspected” that listening numbers would have been “very low indeed”.

Even the normally sympathetic-to-the-Sussexes Newsweek had entertainment expert Mark Boardman saying: “future deals of this kind for Harry and Meghan will be hard to come by” and that they faced being presented “with a lower fee” in future.

Still, no matter. The major plank in their post-palace money-spinning operation is the $145 million deal they have with Netflix.

And just like that … the Jaws theme tune starts to play.

Because within 48 hours of the Spotify news breaking came the Sun’s royal editor Matt Wilkinson reporting that the entertainment giant “is unlikely to renew” the duke and duchess’ contract.

With no season two of their trial-by-teary-pieces-to-camera planned and the duke’s Invictus Games doco the only other project they have on the go, a source told Wilkinson: “There is a less friendly attitude from some at the top”.

“The feeling is that the lemon has been fully squeezed. The big bucks Harry and Meghan signed on for do not exist today,” the source said.

While the paper reported that “the Sussexes are prepared to see out their contractual obligations with Netflix”, no sort of reciprocal sentiment has come out of Netflix.

Just in case Harry and Meghan weren’t already reaching for that one good bottle of scotch they nicked from Buckingham Palace the last time they were allowed past the front gates, then came the Daily Mail bringing up the rear, raising similar doubts over the Sussexes’ future with the entertainment behemoth.

“Speculation [is] rife in Hollywood last night that Netflix may be preparing to follow Spotify in severing links with the Sussexes,” the Mail reported.

A source at the streamer said: “The relationship hasn’t always been great. Harry is no problem but Meghan thinks she knows how to run Hollywood”.

So, let’s summarise here: Spotify, all over, red rover.

Netflix, “unlikely to renew” things.

Harry and Meghan are seen as “lazy and difficult”.

The “feeling” at the streamer, reportedly, is that the Sussex “lemon” has been “fully squeezed” – ie they have lost whatever juice or value they represented previously.

There have been many moments when things looked dicey for Harry and Meghan, but this would have to be one of the worst, if not the worst, turns of fate for the duo since they hightailed it out of the UK.

If their Netflix contract goes the way of Spotify, then they are well and truly up the proverbial creek sans handcrafted, ethically-sourced paddle – it would be the equivalent of that bit in Jaws when the shark jumps on the boat and starts chomping on a leg.

To paraphrase Oscar Wilde: “To lose one deal may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness”.

Or, it looks like Harry and Meghan, their royal stories spent, are just really bad bets for big business.

Who is going to want to bankroll the Sussexes now?

How in god aka Oprah’s name would the Sussexes pull in the previously-estimated $5 million-plus they need annually for living costs if their TV deal also goes out the window?

The way things are going, we could be seeing a Princess Lilibet bow range available exclusively in Target any day now.

The current state of their finances is a thorny question.

While the couple managed to ink north of $200 million in deals in their first 18 months in the US, it is not as if these companies simply dumped scads of money in their account while they chewed the ends of their Tiffany & Co pencils and tried to think up programming ideas.

Rather, these sorts of packages are more likely to have seen the couple’s earnings dependent on their output, with their Spotify deal ending early meaning they will have lost out on millions.

Page Six has reported that “they will not be paid anything close to the full amount they could have earned under the deal” while PR guru Borkowski has estimated that the end of their run with Spotify could have cost them up to $14.5 million.

($14.5 million also happens to be roughly the same size as the mortgage they took out in 2020. Ouch).

“They’re not broke,” a source “stressed” per Page Six. “But they’re going to have to keep spending their money, instead of banking it”.

This is dire news indeed given the couple’s penchant for private jets, polo and that time Meghan wore nearly $70,000 worth of clothing in only six days last year.

Little wonder then that when paparazzi photos of the duchess emerged over the weekend, she looked stressed and about as unhappy as the day she learned that Kensington Palace kitchens didn’t automatically stock oat milk.

In April, Meghan and Meghan alone signed on with Hollywood mega agent Ari Emmanuel and there is now speculation that the former actor might be signed up as the new face of Christian Dior.

Even if this came off, the fee would not even be in the same ballpark as their Spotify deal or the nine figures of their Netflix one.

Let me leave you with this bit of irony: While the duke and duchess are facing a possibly grim financial future, back in the UK, King Charles is busy giving away the Crown Estate’s cut of profits from a $1.8 billion wind farm deal because he wants to help Brits.

So, while lots of hot air is paying off for His Majesty, lots of hot air just might be the Sussexes’ undoing.

Daniela Elser is a royal expert and freelance writer with 15 years’ experience who has written for some of Australia’s best print and digital media brands.