Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s wild $43,000 date night

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex were caught enjoying an ultra high end lifestyle but the lavish night reveals one big problem.

COMMENT

I guarantee there are three words that Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex had never heard before he stepped foot inside his first Erewhon Market or ever gingerly opened his first gas bill: Cost-of-living.

Like ‘bin night’ or ‘drain unclogging’, Harry’s life PM – pre-Megxit – was low on the grinding mundanity of normal life, like paying his own way, and high on hunting weekends, House of Hohenzollern rellies and horsies.

However, now that the duke and his wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex are ‘free’ of having to report for royal duty and free from being on the receiving end of King Charles’ gilt-edged cheques, it’s a fair bet Harry’s learnt exactly what these three words mean.

Because these days, Harry and Meghan are doing plenty of living and boy is it costing, someone else at least.

Take earlier this week when the couple was photographed boarding a private jet along with a clutch of Hollywood stars, including Cameron Diaz, Benji Madden and Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd, to fly the 40 minutes from Santa Barbara to Las Vegas to see Katy Perry perform. (Just pause for a minute here and contemplate the wildness of a royal duke now spending his weekends with a Charlie’s Angels star and an noughties hit maker in the shadow of the Strip.)

Harry and Meghan, Cameron Diaz and Benji Madden, Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd and her oil-heir husband arriving at a Santa Barbara airport before boarding a G4 for the 40 minute flight to Las Vegas. Picture: Backgrid

The numbers associated with this decidedly luxe night out are enough to make any decent accountant quail.

Meghan’s outfit, not including jewellery, was valued at nearly $12,000, with her opting for a $10,696 Valentino mini dress and $1,112 Christian Louboutin heels, according to prices from those news hounds over at the Daily Mail.

Then, consider their mode of transport, winging their way there via a Gulfstream. While the plane in question is reportedly co-owned by Wolfe Herde and her husband, oil heir Michael Herd, renting a similar aircraft to make the same round trip would cost between $32,000 and$40,200, according to a quote from EvoJets.

So far, not counting whatever the going rate for teenage babysitters is in Montecito these days (a couple of bitcoins? Equity in OpenAI?), this one evening alone comes to a total value of at least $43,808,

Meghan’s outfit, not including jewellery, was valued at nearly $12,000, with a $10,696 Valentino mini dress and $1,112 Christian Louboutin heels. Picture: Mega Agency

We’re a long way from The Hollywood Arms, Harry’s go-to London watering hole where a glass of bubbly will set you back a pretty reasonable $13.80. (The Sussexes could have had 3,174 glasses of Hollywood Arms prosecco for the same total value of their Vegas evening. I know, the calibre of this journalism knows no bounds.)

Realistically, of course, Harry and Meghan would not have had to chip in for the flight and the duchess’ dress could have been a gift from the Italian fashion house. (Those pesky rules that governed gifts back in their bygone Palace days are a thing of the past.)

However, my point here is that socially, the Sussexes are now playing in a whole new league, raising the question, can or will they be able to financially keep up?

Sure, the Sussexes might have earned many tens of millions of dollars via their willingness to plumb the depths of their psyches for Netflix cameras and Harry’s ghostwriter, putting them comfortably in the top 0.1 per cent in the US.

But what they have earned, and their limited earning potential going forward, still puts them in the ‘poor cousin’ category when it comes to the circles in which they now move. Put simply, could Harry and Meghan really, and on their own, have been able to afford a $43,000 Saturday night?

Meghan and Benji Madden around 1am at Santa Barbara airport. Picture: Backgrid

Take the other passengers on that flight. In 2021 Wolfe Herd became the youngest self-made female billionaire in the world when her company Bumble went public, however today she is worth around $796 million.

Her husband Michael Herd is a Texan oil heir worth about $43 million.

Some less-than-precise estimates have put Diaz’s net worth at more than $200 million, however what is more concretely known thanks to Forbes is that in the last year she actually acted, 2014, she made $28 million alone.

Moreover, the Sussexes generally speaking now seem to be living a luxury life worthy of a Getty heir yet do they have the deep pockets to personally sustain such an existence?

And it’s at this point we have to channel our inner Blanche Dubois and wonder, how much might they be relying on the kindness of strangers and not-so-strangers?

Take last month when the duke and duchess flew via private jet from New York to the Caribbean island of Canouan in St Vincent and the Grenadines, which is supposedly where ‘billionaires go to escape millionaires’. (That would have to be the most obnoxious tourism line since Monte Carlo’s ‘F**k off, we’re full’.)

Interesting indeed that on the island is the Soho Beach House, and that Meghan has long been associated with the Soho House properties due to her friendship with Markus Anderson, the lifestyle club chain’s Chief Membership Officer.

And interesting that Canouan got an unrivalled global publicity boost after a photo of the couple holidaying on the island was captured by a passer-by.

Prince Harry speaks to Mercedes GP executive director Toto Wolff in the garage prior to the F1 Grand Prix. Picture: Chris Graythen/Getty Images

Or take Harry’s trip, also last month, to the American Formula One Grand Prix in Austin. The duke was a “VIP guest” of the Mercedes-Petronas team, according to Sussex biographer Omid Scobie. Let’s file it under ‘interesting’ that no other teams got a royal visit.

Royalty, it must be very clearly noted, has long enjoyed hoovering up freebies from wealthier chums and not even vaguely chums.

Back during Charles’ first marriage to Diana, Princess of Wales, His Majesty and now Queen Camilla enjoyed luxe holidays in Turkey thanks to now disgraced music mogul Ahmet Ertegun. In 2011, it was revealed that Charles had used the private jet of an American banking tycoon with links to Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, including using the jet for official business. Said banker then somehow got an invitation to William and Kate, the Prince and Princess of Wales’ wedding that year. Another one for the ‘interesting’ collection.

Then, if we were to start totting up the gratis holidays and Gulfstream trips enjoyed by Prince Andrew, the Duke of York and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, the list would be so long News.com.au would need to consider investing in more server space.

However, there is a difference. The Charles and the Andrew situations are clearly transactional – they get a lovely shiny treat and the billionaire who has foot the bill can enjoy the social kudos of royal association.

Katy Perry playing a special Halloween show in Las Vegas. Picture: Brian Prahl/Splash News/Media Mode

The Sussexes now find themselves in a different boat entirely – one where their new social world is largely populated by people who are often stratospherically wealthier than them, making them seem positively beggarly by comparison.

For example, they flew from Vancouver Island to Los Angeles, back in March 2020, in Tyler Perry’s Gulfstream III, which is worth a reported $195 million. That single sum is nearly the same as the total reported value of all of the Sussexes’ original content deals, including their now defunct Spotify union.

Harry and Meghan hopefully had a ball on their five-figure Katy Perry night out but if it wasn’t for their new uber rich chums, it seems questionable they could actually personally afford all that private jetting.

Who knows, maybe I’m wrong and Meghan’s investment in oat milk latte business Clevr Blends is paying huge dividends. Or, maybe Harry is going to be doing a Blanche routine for years to come.

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.