Prince Harry wanted to interview Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, Mark Zuckerberg on podcast about childhood traumas
The Sussex-Spotify partnership was seemingly doomed from the start as Prince Harry made a stunning admission before producing any content for the streaming giant.
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Prince Harry reportedly “horrified” Spotify bosses before the ink was dry on the Sussex’s podcasting deal, which ended spectacularly with claims of the “f-cking grifters” bizarre ideas and “fake” interviews.
Executives at the streaming were said to have been likely stunned when the Duke of Sussex told Oprah in his now-infamous interview that he only signed the multi, multimillion-dollar partnership to pay for security guards, seemingly diminishing the effort of producing high-quality content.
‘It takes an awful lot of work. It’s serious work, it’s planning,’ Royal expert Richard Eden told The Daily Mail. “You can’t just turn up and, ‘Oh, what shall we do today’?”
Prince Harry told Oprah that producing content with Spotify and Netflix was “never part of the plan”, but that it was suggested by someone else after he was “literally cut off financially” from the royal family.
“I had to afford security for us,” he said in the interview.
After Spotify executive Bill Simmons called the pair “f-ucking grifters” for negotiating their $A30 million deal pitching ideals like interviewing Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump about their childhood trauma, more details emerged about the “fake” interviews conducted on Meghan Markle’s podcast, Archetypes.
TV presenter Andy Cohen, producer of The Real Housewives franchise, clapped back at Ms Markle for potentially misleading listeners about their “difficult” conversation over the show allegedly spreading negative stereotypes about women.
In his book The Daddy Diaries, Cohen said Ms Markle made it seem like she spoke directly to him about Housewives “fuelling the fire of archetypes by creating caricatures of women” when they met in person.
“Meghan Markle’s podcast came out and it was interesting to see how they produced it. She narrates it, which is an effective device, especially if you’re cutting an hour down to twenty minutes, which she did,” he wrote.
“However, in that narration, she talks about what a tough conversation this was for her, mentioning that she has conflicting feelings about the Housewives. I think it was interesting that she said it in the narration but didn’t discuss it with me head-on. Wouldn’t that have made for a more dynamic conversation?”
HARRY’S BIZARRE PODCAST IDEAS REVEALED
Prince Harry had his sights set on interviewing Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Mark Zuckerberg for a podcast on childhood traumas for Spotify, it has been revealed.
It’s understood his idea was floated with multiple production companies, with the Duke of Sussex wanting to speak to the high profile, yet controversial, figures about their respective upbringings.
He also wanted to discuss climate change and religion, with a keen interest in interviewing Pope Francis.
The idea left executives puzzled, according to Bloomberg.
The head of Facebook and Russian leader are understood to not be that open about their childhood, leaving huge question marks over the practicalities of how it would be achieved.
The revelations come a week after Spotify axed its multimillion-dollar deal with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
The platform scrapped the contract with Archewell Audio on June 15, announcing it was undertaking a restructure of its podcast division.
A statement issued at the time said both parties had “mutually agreed to part ways and are proud of the series we made together”.
The split means the couple could lose out on a £18 million (A$33.46m) payout with no second series of Archetypes, which ran for 12 episodes from August 2022.
In the show, the Duchess of Sussex discussed the history of stereotypes levelled against women and featured interviews with Serena Williams and Mariah Carey.
In the wake of the Spotify fallout, the couple were slammed by the platform’s Head of Podcast Innovation, Bill Simmons, for being “f***ing grifters”.
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