We Now Know Why Spotify Severed Ties with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle walk hand in hand

(Image credit: Getty)

published 18 June 2023

Spotify and Prince Harry and Meghan Markle severed ties this week, after three years, $20 million, and only 13 episodes of content. Other than the seemingly obvious, what went wrong here?

Spotify, according to The Sun, is looking to drop any content that isn’t meeting audience demands. The company’s CEO Daniel Ek admitted that it is “overpaying and overinvesting,” and Harry and Meghan seem to have met the same fate as Michelle Obama, whose podcast was dropped last year because it wasn’t garnering enough listeners.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle walk hand in hand in casual clothes

“We’re going to be very diligent in how we invest in future content deals,” Ek told BBC. “And the ones that aren’t performing, obviously, we won’t renew. And the ones that are performing, we will obviously look at those on a case-by-case basis on the relative value.”

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle at Trooping the Colour

This comes as rumors emerge that Harry and Meghan’s multimillion-dollar deal with Netflix might also be in jeopardy. While last year’s Harry & Meghan docuseries was the most watched subscription TV show of 2022, there are apparently no plans for a follow-up series, and Netflix is unlikely to renew the couple’s contract. “There is a less friendly attitude from some at the top,” a source says. “The feeling is that the lemon has been fully squeezed. The big bucks Harry and Meghan signed on for do not exist today.”

That deal, also brokered in 2020, was worth a reported $100 million.

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Rachel Burchfield is a writer, editor, and podcaster whose primary interests are fashion and beauty, society and culture, and, most especially, the British Royal Family and other royal families around the world. She serves as Marie Claire’s Senior Celebrity and Royals Editor and has also contributed to publications like Allure, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar, InStyle, People, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and W, among others. Before taking on her current role with Marie Claire, Rachel served as its Weekend Editor and later Royals Editor. She is the cohost of Podcast Royal, a show that was named a top five royal podcast by The New York Times. A voracious reader and lover of books, Rachel also hosts I’d Rather Be Reading, which spotlights the best current nonfiction books hitting the market and interviews the authors of them. Rachel frequently appears as a media commentator, and she or her work has appeared on outlets like NBC’s Today Show, ABC’s Good Morning America, CNN, and more.

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