Meghan Markle’s ‘personal’ offer to Taylor Swift rejected

It’s been revealed that a “personal” offer by Meghan Markle to the pop star to appear on her podcast was rejected – and in a very awkward way.

Taylor Swift turned down Meghan Markle’s offer to appear on her podcast.

Meghan Markle’s “personal” invitation to Taylor Swift to appear on her podcast was turned down by the high-profile singer, it’s been revealed.

The awkward snub was reported by The Wall Street Journal, who added that the Duchess of Sussex had written a “personal letter” to the Anti-Hero singer – who, rather than reply herself, issued a rejection via her representative.

It comes just weeks after it was revealed that Prince Harry and Meghan’s Spotify deal, estimated to be worth around $29 million, had collapsed with reports the streaming giant wasn’t thrilled with the lack of output.

In the joint statement announcing the end of their partnership, Spotify and the Sussexes’ team stated they had “mutually agreed to part ways and are proud of the series we made together”.

The series referred to was Meghan’s 13-episode single season of Archetypes, which featured several of her celebrity friends and looked to dissect the labels thrust upon women.

Meghan reached out to the singer with a “personal” letter.

Swift reportedly turned it down via her representative. Picture: Octavio Jones/TAS23/Getty Images

Shortly after the termination of the deal, a Spotify executive publicly mocked the royal couple as “f**king grifters” amid reports that staff within the streaming service had branded them “lazy”.

Head of Spotify’s international sports content, Bill Simmons, also claimed that he’d been called in to help Harry with ideas for his own podcast.

“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,” he revealed on The Bill Simmons Podcast.

Last week, Bloomberg reporter Ashley Carman also spoke to “people with knowledge of the situation” to detail the type of ideas Harry was suggesting for a podcast.

She quoted anonymous sources as revealing that Harry had pitched interviewing “controversial guests” including Russian President Vladimir Putin, former US President Donald Trump and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg about their childhoods and how it shaped them as adults.

Carman also claimed that he’d wanted to discuss religion with Pope Francis as his guest, and added that those tasked with helping the Duke of Sussex get his ideas off the ground had found the suggestions “questionable”.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, no such podcast ever materialised.

Harry and Meghan’s Spotify deal has ended. Picture: Angela Weiss/AFP

And according to The Wall Street Journal, this is far from the only idea from the Sussexes to be rejected.

Harry and Meghan had also reportedly pitched shows to Netflix as part of their reported $150 million deal, which were deemed too similar to those that already existed on the service.

The publication reports that they had suggested an Emily In Paris-style series but with a male as the lead, and a show about LGBTQ characters similar to those in Heartstopper.

Meghan’s animated series about powerful women in history, called Pearl, was cancelled before it even made it to air.

The couple did produce a six-part docu-series in December, titled Harry & Meghan, another docuuseries called Live to Lead about global leaders and activists, and Harry’s Invictus Games documentary, Heart of Invictus, which is set to be released later this year.

According to the WSJ, they have at least one other series actually in production: a Great Expectations-style show called Bad Manners.

It’s understood to be a prequel to the Charles Dickens classic and retells the story of a lonely Miss Haversham living in a patriarchal society.

Originally published as Meghan Markle’s ‘personal’ offer to Taylor Swift rejected