Prince Harry’s Oprah remark that ‘horrified’ Spotify bosses

Prince Harry’s tell-all with Oprah Winfrey featured plenty of jaw-dropping statements – but one in particular didn’t sit well with Spotify executives.

Harry’s comments in his Oprah Winfrey interview raised eyebrows. Picture: CBS

One key moment during Prince Harry’s bombshell 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey “horrified” Spotify bosses, according to a new claim.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s contract with Spotify, estimated to be worth somewhere between $29 million and $37 million AUD, was declared officially over in a joint statement from the streaming giant and Harry and Meghan Markle’s company, Archewell Audio, earlier this month.

But according to the Daily Mail’s Richard Eden, a key statement during Harry and Meghan’s controversial tell-all with TV queen Winfrey would have caused concern among Spotify executives all the way back in 2021.

During the conversation, Harry admitted that the high-profile deals he and his wife had signed after leaving the royal family – which, along with Spotify, also included a massive $150 million Netflix contract – were “never part of the plan”.

“That (the deals) was suggested by somebody else by the point of where my family literally cut me off financially, and I had to afford security for us,” he insisted to Winfrey.

According to Eden, it didn’t land well with Spotify bosses.

“This has horrified Spotify and executives because... it takes an awful lot of work [to produce a podcast]. It’s serious work, it’s planning,” the reporter told Palace Confidential.

“You can’t just turn up and, ‘Oh, what shall we do today’? That’s shown by … you know … I had to listen to these podcasts for the program so frankly, I’m not surprised it’s coming to an end.”

Harry and Meghan during their interview with Oprah Winfrey. Picture: CBS

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 the Duchess of Sussex’s 13-episode single season of Archetypes, which featured several of her celebrity friends and looked to dissect the labels thrust upon women.

Meghan released a single 12-episode season of her podcast through Spotify.

Shortly after the contract termination was announced, the couple was publicly branded “f**king grifters” by Spotify executive Bill Simmons, who hosts a podcast and is also the audio service’s head of international sports content.

“I wish I had been involved in the ‘Meghan and Harry leave Spotify’ negotiation. ‘The F**king Grifters.’ That’s the podcast we should have launched with them,” Simmons said on The Bill Simmons Podcast.

“I have got to get drunk one night and tell the story of the Zoom I had with Harry to try and help him with a podcast idea. It’s one of my best stories … F**k them. The grifters.”

The collapse of the deal will surely be adding plenty of unwanted financial pressure on Harry and Meghan, whose lifestyle does not come cheap.

According to Page Six, their sprawling Montecito mansion – bought for a reported $21 million in 2020 – has a hefty mortgage, while annual property taxes alone cost around $210,000, plus staffing and maintenance.

Meanwhile, the cost of their private security detail is believed to be around $3 million a year and Harry is also currently paying legal fees from his ongoing battles with the British press.

“They’re not broke,” a source told Page Six. “But they’re going to have to keep spending their money, instead of banking it.”