Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s $129 million Netflix pay cut

A new report has revealed how much the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have really banked from their Netflix deal – and it’s a shocker.

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Most people think that Henry VIII invented the Anglican Church because he wanted a divorce to marry hottie Anne Boleyn – but it was also about money. He promptly dissolved the 625 Catholic monasteries and nunneries and helped himself to all their land and lucre, because things were a bit tight that month. Gold doublets don’t come cheap.

The moral of the story: the British royal family has been fretting about money forever and a day. (King Charles’ divorce from Diana, Princess of Wales left him broke and he had to borrow money from the late Queen.)

Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex might no longer be required to pretend to enjoy the Windsor horseshow but they too are not immune to original Henry’s bugaboo – finding enough dough to keep them in the lifestyle to which they have eagerly become accustomed.

Now this week has come a new report revealing the shockingly tiddly amount of money that the Sussexes have actually been paid by Netflix, and it’s about $129 million less than was previously reported. Cripes.

Prince Harry and Meghan in Whistler. Picture: Andrew Chin/Getty Images/AFP

Central to the Sussex narrative since 2020 has been one number – $USD100 million. (That works out at $152 million in our money.) This is how much their “megawatt,” as the slightly breathless New York Times put it back then, deal with Netflix was worth. The streaming giant had beaten out the Apples and Disneys to secure the talents of the recently emancipated couple, who were primed and ready to conquer La La Land, one doco showing Harry squinting into the African sun as he rescued an elephant calf, at a time.

Except those best laid plans have come a bit of a cropper.

Now this week, the Daily Mail’s Alison Boshoff has reported that in reality the Sussexes have only banked $22.9 million from the streamer for their six-hour docuseries Harry & Meghan, an endurance exercise in how much self-pity and how many taupe linen sofas one can stomach in a sitting.

“It was never the huge payday that the press reported,” a well-placed source with knowledge of the deal told Boshoff. “The $100 million number was always a newspaper figure.”

That $22.9 million is a far cry from all the supposed rivers of gold the duke and duchess were supposed to be splashing about in post-Megxit as they embodied the American success story. Just a local lass, her hardy immigrant husband and their dream and hey presto! A 16-loo mansion. Songs have been written about less.

Just a local lass, her hardy immigrant husband and their dream and hey presto! A 16-loo mansion. Picture: Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for Project Healthy Minds

Let us continue our actuarial amble through Harry and Meghan’s finances.

The other big ticket money spinner in Sussex land was Harry’s 2023 memoir Spare, which broke the Guinness World Record for fastest selling nonfiction book of all time. He was paid a reported $USD20 million ($30.5 million) advance for the tome, no small feat for a man who left school with a B in art and a D in geography.

Still, that’s a serious wodge of cash and the book is still selling (it’s currently 13th on the US Amazon charts) but … how likely is he to get another advance of this magnitude again? Call this a one-and-done situation.

Let us not forget here either Meghan’s publishing effort with the duchess reportedly having been paid about $960,000 for her 167-word 2021 children’s book The Bench. (That’s $5748 per word. Ed, please note.)

And what of Spotify? The duke and duchess might have been junked by the audio giant but still, some money must have changed hands. Boshoff writes that the duo “will have most likely only netted them a fraction” of the original $USD20 ($30.5) million deal.

The other side of the coin – pause for groans – here is the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s expenses, no Two-Minute Noodles and Uniqlo jumpers here, no siree.

The other side of the coin – pause for groans – here is the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s expenses. Picture: Splash News/Media Mode

Last week they were in Canada and Meghan wore, among other obsessively reported items, a $5700 Hermès puffer jacket and a $480 Burberry beanie. The couple flew to Whistler from Santa Barbara via private jet, check in and all that gate-waiting clearly for lesser sorts who don’t have their own cyphers.

It all looks very lifestyles of the rich and gauche. Little thing. According to Page Six the couple were “guests” on the private flight. Translation: It was a freebie, which would seem to be their preferred mode of travel. (In the last few months they have also taken borrowed PJs to Las Vegas and Jamaica. It is not known who paid for their private jet travel to New York and the Caribbean last October.)

“They certainly don’t like to spend their own money,” a source who has worked with the couple told Page Six. Another well-placed source has said: “It’s always other people’s money.”

Leaving aside the Gulfstream budget, there are the Sussexes’ more prosaic costs, which the Mail has previously been pegged at being about $6.7 million-a-year, including $733,00 for their mortgage and $5 million for their tranche of no-neck private bodyguards.

At the Premiere of Bob Marley: One Love in Kingston, Jamaica. Picture: Jason Koerner/Getty Images for Paramount Pictures

So many numbers. So much early-morning use of the calculator app. Stay with me here.

If we assume that between Netflix, Spare, The Bench and Spotify (taking a wild stab and guessing that, say, they picked up a quarter of what the audio company had promised them) that gives them a grand total of $61.9 million in earnings since arriving in the US in 2020.

Doing some back of the envelope calculations, and using the Mail’s estimates of their expenses, their post-Megxit earrings will keep them afloat for only nine and a bit years.

Caveats here: Harry was reportedly left about $13.5 million by his late mother Diana, Princess of Wales and it’s unknown if the late Queen might have seen her way to bequeathing the Sussexes a little something something. So, maybe there’s an extra two or three years of Montecito cost here too.

Still, Harry and Meghan are young, healthy and most likely sucking back green juices daily. They have decades and decades ahead of them.

There is a something of a sword of Damocles hanging over the Sussexes – they have made monetary hay while the public interest in their story shines but how long will it last?

In January the couple popped up in Jamaica on the red carpet for the premiere of the Bob Marley biopic One Love, having been flown in by private jet, natch, and put up by Paramount, according to The Sun.

Harry & Meghan was an endurance exercise in how much self-pity and how many taupe sofas one can stomach in a sitting. Picture: Netflix

At the time, knickers back in London were being twisted about what this might presage. The Sun reported that “there is fear behind Palace walls that the couple could become ‘royals for hire’ as they struggle to fund their expensive lifestyle amid floundering media deals.”

However, maybe they have been savvier and clue-ier with their cash. Last year when Harry and Meghan popped over to Las Vegas to catch the final Katy Perry show, their private jet travel comped, the duke was seen with billionaire Wall Street bigwig Ken Griffin. There have been reports that Griffin has been helping the Sussexes invest their dosh, so maybe they will be able to make that $61.9 million go much further.

So, Harry and Meghan might have foregone or lost many of the trappings and shiny nice bits of royal life but in this, questions about how they will stay afloat, they are positively Henrician.

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 Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s $129 million Netflix pay cut