Prince Harry and Meghan’s multimillion-dollar Spotify deal has been scrapped
A senior Spotify executive has labelled the Duke and Duchess of Sussex ‘f****** grifters’ in his own podcast after the Swedish streaming giant axed their multimillion-dollar deal.
Royals
Don't miss out on the headlines from Royals. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Just hours after Spotify axed its multimillion-dollar deal with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, one of the Swedish streaming giant’s own execs used his own podcast to slam the couple, calling them “f****** grifters”.
Spotify scrapped the contract on Friday announcing it was undertaking a restructure of their podcast division.
Then the platform’s podcast innovation and monetisation chief Bill Simmons aired his own podcast on Friday night and didn’t hold back.
The 53-year-old said: “The f****** grifters! That’s the podcast we should have launched with them.”
‘Grifters’ is an American term used to describe people “who engage in petty or small-scale swindling”.
Simmons went on: “I’ve 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.”
Prince Harry and Meghan will continue to “develop content for the Archetypes audience on another platform,” a spokeswoman for the couple’s Archewell Productions media company said.
“Spotify and Archewell Audio have 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 a joint statement, the streaming service and Archewell Audio, Harry and Meghan’s production company, said they had “mutually agreed to part ways and are proud of the series we made together”.
It ranked as the Top Podcast in the US, the UK and all of Spotify’s main English-speaking markets amid accusations the company had massaged its figures to keep Meghan Markle at No 1 when she was lagging behind Joe Rogan and other stars in terms of daily listeners.
According to a report in trade title Variety, citing an unnamed source, Spotify had been expecting more material from the royal couple.
Simmons sold his podcast and sports journalism company The Ringer to the streaming giant for $225 million (£155 million) in 2020 and, as one of the most respected figures at Spotify today, he is knows he need not hold back.
And this is not the first time Simmons has issued a damning put-down about the Sussexes podcast deal, once saying Spotify’s affiliation with the Duke was “embarrassing” adding “who cares about your life?”
Archewell is reportedly in ongoing discussions to get content on other providers’ services.
Prince Harry and Meghan have said they will no longer produce Netflix shows or books with an anti-royals bent, and will instead have a “heavy focus on fictional scripted content”.
It comes amid speculation that a multimillion dollar content creation contract with streaming giant Netflix is also in jeopardy.
The docuseries Heart of Invictus was announced as the first project to air on the platform, however it’s yet to hit screens, sparking concerns that the production has been scrapped.
Twitter user, MeghansMole, posted news of the rumoured cancellation to the social media platform on June 3, blaming the decision on Meghan Markle.
“Netflix has cancelled “Heart of Invictus” You can thank Meghan Markle, her outrageous demands & turning it into the “Meghan Fashion show”, instead of it being focused on the veterans. The amount of money that was expensed on Meghan could have been used for the veterans,” the user wrote.
The tweet has been viewed over 1.5 million times and received over 9000 likes, 1000 retweets and 800 comments.
The user has since tweeted again, this time to attribute the source for the information as “someone close to my cousin” who “works at Netflix”.
Since then, several other accounts have made similar claims, including Mystifeye, who wrote:
“So Netflix cancelled Heart of Invictus. Wasn’t that Harry’s big contribution to their Netflix deal? I guess Netflix is done with the Harkles altogether. Not shocking that mockuseries they did was a snooze fest! Seriously the music alone was obnoxious! Guess they better get on the stick with those Rom-Coms. #HarryAndMeghanAreFinished”
Responding to the claim, Netflix told Newsweek that previously announced information remained “correct” and “accurate”.
And on June 13, in a Twitter thread about their 2023 content line-up Netflix UK wrote: “HEART OF INVICTUS (Summer 2023) This new series from Archewell Productions follows a group of extraordinary competitors from around the globe – all service members who have suffered life-changing injuries or illnesses – on their road to competing at the Invictus Games.”
Harry, the younger son of King Charles, married glamorous former US television actor Meghan, who is mixed race, in 2018 in a blaze of positive coverage that looked set to help bring the tradition-bound monarchy into the 21st century.
But relations between the couple and the family soured over the following years, with accusations Markle was subjected to racism.
Harry and his wife stepped back from royal life and relocated to California, from where they have continued to lob brickbats at the institution.
Most explosively there has been a tell-all autobiography from the 38-year-old prince, a Netflix docu-series, and a high-profile interview with Oprah Winfrey.
Since quitting royal duties, the couple have sought to make money through media ventures.
FUNNY MOMENT BABY BURPS IN FRONT OF KATE
The Princess of Wales laughed as she congratulated a little baby on its unexpected burp.
“Well done you,” Princess Kate exclaimed to the 10-week-old during a visit to the Riversley Park Children’s Centre, which recently received a grant from her Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood.
The money is helping a study that will trial the Alarm Distress Baby Scale (ADBB) in Nuneaton, Warwickshire.
The baby’s mother, Brogan Goodwin, 24, said she thought her bub was going to be sick.
“I thought ‘please don’t vomit on the princess’, but luckily it was only a burp. I’m going to wait till his 18th birthday to tell him.”
Wearing an animal print dress with white heels, the 41-year-old princess spoke to staff, telling them “the more health visitors, the better”.
After high-fiving children and parents waiting outside, Kate sat with mums and their bubs, spending the entire time holding nine-month-old Talia Saliba-Kerr’s hand.
The ADBB study, funded by Kate’s foundation, aims to support the profession to promote infant wellbeing and social and emotional development.
During the hour-long visit, the princess interacted with newborns saying “you forget how tiny they are first born”.
“The first time (becoming a mother) having support of health visitors is so important,” she said.
“Particularly during the first time you have expectations of what pregnancy will be like, but everyone’s expectations are different to reality.
“At this age they are so aware of different voices and environments. Having someone there to talk to is so important.”
Kate said staff played such a critical role in society.
“Right at the beginning the more you can do to help facilitate that the better the opportunities are later on.”
The Princess was also invited to join an online ADBB training session which she politely accepted.
– Reporting with AFP
More Coverage
Originally published as Prince Harry and Meghan’s multimillion-dollar Spotify deal has been scrapped
Join the conversation
Meghan’s BFF spills on their friendship
One of Meghan’s closest friends has shared details of their relationship amid a challenging few weeks for the duchess.
Read more
Magazine’s savage two-word Meghan diss
The Duchess of Sussex returned to the spotlight this week, and one US publication had something brutal to say about her career.
Read more