Spotify Executive Calls Harry and Meghan ‘Grifters’ after Podcast Deal Ends

THE GUARDIAN: Bill Simmons, head of podcast innovation and monetisation at Spotify, spoke out after the couple’s $20m deal with the company ended prematurely

Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, attend the annual One Young World Summit in Manchester in September 2022. A spotify executive has labeled the pair ‘fucking grifters’ Photograph: Oli Scarff/AFP/Getty Images
Spotify’s head of podcast innovation and monetisation has labelled Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex “grifters” after their $20m, multi-year deal to make podcasts with the streaming platform came to an end after they made just 12 episodes.

Ringer podcast network founder Bill Simmons – who sold his company to Spotify for $196m in 2020 and gained a leadership role at the company in the deal – criticised Harry and Meghan on his own podcast, following the announcement that the Sussexes’ audio production company, Archewell, had severed ties with Spotify. The couple signed a $20m deal with Spotify in 2020.

The Archetypes podcast, which was hosted by Meghan, featured conversations with friends and celebrities including Serena Williams, Mariah Carey and Trevor Noah. It topped the podcast charts for Spotify in a number of markets, but only 12 episodes were made. » | Sian Cain | Monday, June 19, 2023

What does end of Spotify deal mean for Harry and Meghan?: Streamer and couple said it was a mutual decision but a PR expert says it looks bad for their brand »

Why Spotify's Big Bet on Meghan Fell Flat

PA MEDIA
BBC: When Spotify signed the Duke and Duchess of Sussex with an exclusive deal reportedly worth about $20m (£15.6m) in 2020, the royal couple were taking their first steps into the commercial world and podcasts were positively booming.

How times have changed.

These days, Prince Harry and Meghan's brand has waned in the eyes of some and Spotify is reducing its reliance on the big celebrity signings and expensive original content that have weighed on its bottom line.

Meghan’s podcast became one of the most high-profile casualties this week when Spotify and the duke and duchess's Archewell Audio announced they would be parting ways in a mutual decision.

It came after Spotify's deal with Barack and Michelle Obama's production company ended last year. Spotify has let go hundreds of staff since that time, hitting the expansive podcasting division, a hotchpotch of podcasting companies it spent more than $400m acquiring just a few years ago. » | Natalie Sherman, Business reporter, New York | Saturday, June 17, 2023

What does end of Spotify deal mean for Harry and Meghan?: Streamer and couple said it was a mutual decision but a PR expert says it looks bad for their brand »

Prince Harry and Meghan to Part Ways With Spotify: The couple’s production company and the streaming service announced an end to their relationship, less than a year after Meghan’s podcast debuted on the platform. »

Piers Morgan Slams Prince Harry and Meghan Markle

Click here to listen to Piers Morgan SLAM Harry and Meghan.

Netflix Analysis: This Time Harry and Meghan Got Personal

REUTERS
BBC: This time it's personal. Deeply personal.

The Netflix trailers had hinted at explosive revelations about the monarchy, but in the end the final three episodes of the series had a different kind of impact. It was emotional rather than political.

It was a battle between brothers, with an underlying sense of anger and betrayal.

People sometimes call the royals a soap opera. This was the Christmas omnibus edition, with claims of shouting matches, underhand dealing, and a big walkout.

"It was terrifying to have my brother scream and shout at me and my father say things that just simply weren't true," said Prince Harry.

He was still clearly raw and raging. His hatred for the tabloid press loomed large. "Enough of the pain, enough of the suffering," he said of the impact of negative press coverage of his wife.

There was no great warmth for the rest of his family either. Across six hours of the series, his father, King Charles, was only a fleeting guest in the story. Camilla, the Queen Consort, seemed absent entirely.

The family summit in Sandringham - before Harry and Meghan left for the US - was presented as more like an ambush. The couple claimed they had been given no flexibility on their plans to be half-in, half-out royals.

"So there was no other option at this point. I said 'We need to get out of here,'" said Prince Harry. » | Sean Coughlan, Royal correspondent | Thursday, December 15, 2022

Related.

FROM 'THE NEW YORK TIMES':

Harry Takes Aim at William in New Episodes of Netflix Documentary: The younger prince made several incendiary allegations about his brother, who is now heir to the British throne. »

‘Harry & Meghan’: A Second Serving of Reviews for the Netflix Series: The final episodes include the Duchess of Sussex’s claim that the royal family fed her “to the wolves,” but some critics have had their fill of the couple’s account. »

Keeping Up With the Windsors: Prince William and Prince Harry are out and about quite a bit lately. With the release of the younger brother’s Netflix documentary and upcoming memoir, don’t expect the jockeying for attention to abate anytime soon. »

'Institutional Gaslighting': Harry's Latest Dig at the Royal Family in New Netflix Trailer

Dec 12, 2022

Related links in German and in in English.

Harry and Meghan on Netflix: Royals 'Didn't Understand Need to Protect Meghan'

Some royals questioned why Meghan should be protected from press harassment, Prince Harry has claimed in the couple's new Netflix documentary.

Read the article here.

This whole thing smacks of two things to me: washing your dirty linen in public; and capitalizing on their position to rake in the dough.

With so many people really suffering these days, both at home and abroad, this spilling of the beans sounds rather nasty, petty and childlike. It is also rather unbecoming behaviour for members of the royal family. – © Mark Alexander

Netflix Releases Long-awaited Harry and Meghan Documentary Series [Docuseries]

Dec 8, 2022 | The long-awaited Netflix documentary series about the couple has been released. Netflix is billing the six-part series as "an unprecedented and in-depth" look into their lives. Former Buckingham Palace spokesman Dickie Arbiter discusses what these series are all about.

Millions of Britons have worse grievances than the Sussexes do right now. But their critique of the royal family is damning »

‘A full house of the prince’s public indiscretions!’ What we learned from the Harry & Meghan documentary: From drugs to the Nazi uniform, the prince reveals too much, while Meghan reveals almost nothing – save for the fact that she’s a terrible poet. Largely, though, this is a three-hour teary snoozefest »

Harry & Meghan review – so sickening I almost brought up my breakfast: Although there are sweet moments alongside the vomit-inducing, the overriding message of this royal documentary is: the late Queen was right to keep stumm»

Harry and Meghan’s Children Become Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet

THE GUARDIAN: Queen’s death means Sussexes’ children have right to title HRH unless and until Charles changes protocols

Archie Mountbatten-Windsor with his parents in 2019. As grandson to the monarch he is now entitled to be a prince. Photograph: Toby Melville/PA
The death of the Queen means that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s son, Archie Mountbatten-Windsor, is now technically a prince – a title that his mother, Meghan, had suggested was denied to him because of his race.

His younger sister, Lilibet “Lili” Mountbatten-Windsor, is also entitled to be a princess after the death and the accession of her grandfather, the Prince of Wales, to the throne. » | Ben Quinn | Thursday, September 8, 2022

Bully or Bullied? The New Royal Scandal Surrounding Meghan Markle | 60 Minutes Australia

Jul 31, 2022 Buckingham Palace is full of ornate decor but its most useful treasure is its magnificently woven carpet. It's perfect to sweep royal scandals under. The latest one involves serious allegations the Duchess of Sussex intimidated and belittled her staffers. When the claims were first reported, the palace announced it was conducting an enquiry, but now it's said it won't release the findings. That's left many wondering what was uncovered. Could it be that the facts really reveal instead of being the bully, Meghan is actually the one who's been bullied?

'Moment Everyone Had Been Waiting For': Columnist on Meghan and Harry Attending Jubilee Service

Jun 4, 2022 • Robert Hardman, columnist for The Daily Mail, tells CNN's Christi Paul about the reception the Harry and Meghan received at Queen Elizabeth II's platinum jubilee.

For Meghan, an Image Rendered in a U.K.-U.S. Split Screen

THE NEW YORK TIMES: She has re-emerged in America as a formidable A-list celebrity and social activist. In Britain, however, Meghan remains a polarizing figure.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, at a gala for veterans in New York on Wednesday. | Craig Ruttle/Associated Press
LONDON — When Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, stepped out last week at a gala for veterans in New York City, the beaming, beribboned prince declared he was “living the American dream.” That might be even truer of Meghan, who has restyled herself since leaving Britain last year as a philanthropist, multimedia entrepreneur and outspoken campaigner for family leave rights.

Even as they were taking Manhattan, though, Meghan was shadowed by the couple’s old life in London. She was forced to apologize for erroneous statements she made in a lawsuit against a British tabloid, The Mail on Sunday, for violating her privacy by publishing a letter she had sent to her father.

Meghan said it was a case of faulty memory. But the tabloids, which have been at war with the couple since before they abandoned Britain for Southern California, leapt on the admission. “Little Miss Forgetful,” said The Sun, above an unflattering caricature of Meghan, drawn from “Little Miss,” an English children’s book series. » | Mark Landler | Saturday, November 13, 2021

Meghan and Harry Announce Birth of Baby Daughter Lilibet

THE GUARDIAN: Child named after the family nickname for the Queen, the baby’s great-grandmother

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have announced the birth of a daughter they have named Lilibet “Lili” Diana Mountbatten-Windsor.

Harry and Meghan’s daughter, who was born in hospital in California on Friday, weighed 7lb 11oz and has been named after the family nickname for the Queen, the baby’s great-grandmother. Her middle name was chosen to honour her late grandmother Diana, Princess of Wales, the couple said. The baby is the Queen’s 11th great-grandchild and is eighth in line to the throne.

Both mother and child were healthy and well, a statement said, and Lilibet – a younger sister for two-year-old Archie – was “settling in at home” after her birth at Santa Barbara Cottage hospital. » | Jessica Murray | Sunday, June 6, 2021

Harry and Meghan Announce Birth of Second Baby, Lilibet Diana »

What’s in a name? The meanings of Lilibet Diana Mountbatten-Windsor »

Piers Morgan Speaks to Journalists about Meghan Row and Good Morning Britain (GMB) Exit

A day after leaving his job at Good Morning Britain, Piers Morgan said the Duchess of Sussex's interview with Oprah Winfrey was a 'diatribe of bilge' and that he doesn't 'believe almost anything that comes out of her mouth'. Morgan came under fire after making critical remarks about the Duchess of Sussex’s mental health, prompting an on-air row with a colleague and more than 40,000 complaints to Ofcom. During the interview, Meghan said her mental health had deteriorated while she was pregnant amid a barrage of negative and racist press coverage and alleged a lack of support from 'the firm' – the apparatus surrounding the royal household

Wallis Simpson's Hard Lessons for Harry and Meghan

BBC: A popular, playful prince falls in love with a strong-willed US divorcee, who ends up vilified by a hostile British press. In Harry and Meghan, some royal watchers see echoes of Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson, the couple at the heart of the abdication crisis eight decades ago. But does the comparison hold up? It could do if the Duke and Duchess of Sussex end up reliving the Duke and Duchess of Windsor's tormented exile.

In December 1936, The King gave up his throne and an Empire of half a billion souls so he could wed a woman who was divorcing her second husband.

The public vitriol spewed on his bride-to-be, Wallis Simpson, might strike a chord with the latest American to marry into Britain's royal family.

On top of being condemned as a social climber from a Baltimore, Maryland, row-house, Simpson was reviled as a cheap adventuress, a lesbian, a nymphomaniac, a Nazi spy and a hermaphrodite.

She was portrayed as a sexual enchantress who supposedly learned "ancient Chinese skills" in the brothels of Shanghai, where her first husband, a US Navy pilot, had been stationed.

But the media's attacks on Simpson weren't just in print.

Daily Express reporters hurled bricks through the window of her rented Regent's Park, London, home, the newspaper's owner, Lord Beaverbrook, would later acknowledge. » | Jude Sheerin, BBC, Washington | Saturday, February 22, 2020

Prince Harry and Meghan's UK Home Being Closed Down

THE GUARDIAN: Reports add to speculation that Duke and Duchess do not plan to spend much time in UK

Frogmore Cottage, the home of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, is in the process of being shuttered, according to reports, fuelling speculation the couple do not intend to spend any meaningful time in the UK in the near future.

Key live-in staff – a house manager and a cleaner – are being moved to other duties within the Queen’s household. Other staff members, used on an ad hoc basis and including chefs, maids and footmen, have been told their services are no longer required at the couple’s Windsor residence, the Daily Mail reported.

The claim comes as Harry and Meghan begin a period of “transition”, splitting their time between the UK and Canada, with the reluctant blessing of the Queen. » | Caroline Davies | Friday, January 17, 2020

It’s not just Meghan and Harry. I’d like us all to escape this dire royal circus » | Suzanne Moore

Most Canadians Don't Want to Cover Harry and Meghan's Costs, Poll Says | Power & Politics

A large majority of Canadians don’t want to pay for Harry and Meghan’s security costs during their time in Canada, according to a new poll by the Angus Reid Institute.

Prince Harry Launches Phone-hacking Case against Sun and Mirror Owners

THE GUARDIAN: Royal continues fight with UK newspapers after attacking treatment of his wife, Meghan

Prince Harry has issued legal proceedings against the owners of the Sun and the Daily Mirror over alleged phone hacking, in an escalation of his all-out war with the British newspaper industry.

The decision follows Harry’s strongly worded attack on the British media’s treatment of his wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex.

Buckingham Palace confirmed claims had been filed at the high court regarding alleged illegal interception of voicemail messages. News Group, which published the News of the World until its closure as well as the Sun, confirmed a claim had been issued.

There were no details on the nature of the intended claims but they were filed by Clintons, a law firm that has brought multiple phone-hacking claims in the past and won substantial payouts on behalf of its clients. » | Jim Waterson and Caroline Davies | Friday, October 4, 2019