Fears Prince Harry and Meghan are ‘running out of money’
Questions are mounting over the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s financial future, with claims they want to start a “global property empire”.
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It’s one of those perennial stories that crops up every year like a recurring, cream-can’t-fix rash – how much money do you need to be considered rich?
The latest figure, in both the UK and Australia, suggests you need a net worth of more than $7 million to make it into the top 1 per cent.
So, by any and every definition, Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are, technically speaking, rolling in it.
While no hard and fast figures have ever been established, the duke made $30 million from his book deal and they pocked about $22 million for their Harry & Meghan six-parter (subtitle: cash for royal comment).
However, there is another question those news stories don’t ask and which the Sussexes are now facing down – how fast can one burn through a fortune?
And just how can or might a duke and duchess whose primary asset – Their Story – has long since been spent, thoroughly exhausted, wrung out and sucked dry, actually make money?
According to a new report, Buckingham Palace types are already worried about what could happen if the duke and duchess’ expensive lifestyle means their coffers run dry.
These questions about the Sussexes’ financial future come with less than 300 days to go until their Netflix deal will end, or at least until the world learnt about the marriage-made-in-moolah-heaven.
Last month, Harry and Meghan revealed they had gotten into the property investing game, plonking down some sort of (most likely) six figure sum to own their own bit of Portugal.
After all, it’s an area where his cousin Princess Eugenie and her young family lives for part of the year as her husband Jack Brooksbank earns a crust trying to sell a luxury property development. (It’s not clear if the Sussexes have bought into that one, or something else nearby).
This week, The Sun reported on why the couple had made this somewhat random purchase – they won’t be living in the home, but it’s an investment, whether as something they might Airbnb or simply as a place they can “park money”.
This Portuguese purchase “is seen as the first step of putting earnings from their TV and book deals into a global property empire”, according to the report.
“They’re being smart with their money,” a source told the paper.
However, back in London, royal courtiers sort of sound like they are less than comforted by Harry and Meghan’s nascent attempt to start a “global property empire”.
According to The Sun, “Palace insiders have been concerned about what will happen when the Sussexes run out of cash” given that “they have huge overheads”.
Overheads like a reported $20 million mortgage and the estimated $3 million they are required to find every year to pay their security bill, having decided to live in the land of free and easy access to gun ownership and a lot of crazy. (In the four and a half years since they arrived in the US, that amounts to them having spent $13.5 million on bodyguards already).
After they bought their Montecito estate, the Daily Mail estimated that the day-to-day running costs of their life, including travel and staff, could be as high as $6.6 million per year.
To really put things in perspective, consider this.
In September, when Harry turned 40, he was paid out a reported $12 million from the trust the Queen Mother set up for her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Which amounts to keeping the lights on at home and paying the salaries of gun-toting men named Derek for just shy of two years.
This is really a two-pronged headache for Harry and Meghan – prong numero uno, how to pull in the serious dosh they will need every year and prong due, their expenses.
That first headache could become even more pressing and obvious in the months to come.
It is a date long set in infamy – September 2, 2020 – when the New York Times broke the news that the recently gone-rogue Sussexes had signed a “megawatt” deal with Netflix, with the $US100 million figure suddenly being bandied around.
It seemed like a no-brainer – the couple would crank out well-meaning content and the streamer could crow about having a couple of legit members of the British royal family on their books.
Everyone wins, right?
Wrong.
Of the three series that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have been involved with – Harry & Meghan, Live To Lead and Heart of Invictus – only one has actually done any sort of real business viewing-wise.
As powerful as watching Supreme Court Judge and true icon Ruth Bader Ginsberg talk about leadership or veterans battling PTSD to build new lives through sport might be, at the end of a long day, few people are choosing to binge that over Bridgerton for the sixth time.
Which brings us to the great existential question at the heart of the Sussexes. If you take away their royal story and identity and their titles and their proximity to the throne, what do Harry and Meghan have to offer? What is their intrinsic value as creators and people in and of their own right?
We are about to find out, with both of them having independent series set to debut, first Harry’s Polo and then next year, Meghan’s untitled let-me-show-you-how-to-make-a-pie-crust entertaining show.
Who knows – maybe these will both be huge successes and there will be double helpings of crow coming the way of naysayers.
Another unknown piece in all of this is their possible entrepreneurial plans. That same Sun story has reported that “The pair are now on a twin-track business plan, with Meghan hoping to sell jam and Harry hoping to announce separate projects”.
However, the duchess’ embryonic American Riviera Orchard (ARO), after being announced in March, has yet to produce let alone sell a single pot of the sticky stuff and has run into problems even trademarking the name. We are a long, long way off ARO being able to help pay the family’s bills.
And the duke is “hoping to announce separate projects”?
I’m a bit lost even trying to imagine what sort of products or services Harry Pty Ltd might offer up. A counselling service for second sons? A grey polo shirt subscription service? Juggling lessons delivered by Zoom?
Still, maybe Harry and Meghan are about to have the last laugh.
With the US having re-elected a Twistie-coloured man who probably goes to sleep snuggling a Putin body pillow, at least they now have somewhere they could move to, far, far away from Coke-stained MAGA hats.
“Graças a Deus” (or “thank god”), as the Portuguese might say.
Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and a royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles
Originally published as Fears Prince Harry and Meghan are ‘running out of money’
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