By Jonathan Mason-June 25th, 2023.
Spotify executives were probably “horrified” by comments Prince Harry made to Oprah Winfrey in a TV interview after he had put the royal signature to a multimillion dollar podcast contract with the Swedish streaming giant, said Richard Eden, a Daily Mail journalist who closely follows all things royal.
Harry, 39, and his wife Meghan Markle, 41, inked an agreement with the audio giant back in December 2020, with an estimated total value of $20, should the contract be completed.
But just four months later, the royal raised eyebrows with flip remarks about the deal during his sensational sit-down with Winfrey.
Speaking about Spotify and a separate arrangement with Netflix, Harry downplayed their significance, saying they were “never part of the plan.”
“That 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 added, implying that he was forced to sign the deals out of desperation so as to pay for security guards and personal protection for his family.
During a discussion on Palace Confidential on Thursday, Daily Mail’s Diary Editor Richard Eden said Spotify execs were likely unimpressed by those remarks.
“It takes an awful lot of work [to produce a podcast]. It’s serious work, it’s planning,” Eden said. “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,” he continued.
Daily Mail’s Royal Editor Rebecca English agreed with Eden during the Palace Confidential panel discussion, saying that while the couple probably wanted to create “worthy” content about causes they care about, people care more about what it’s like to be a royal.
“What it gets to the heart of is what it is they can sell,” she bluntly stated.
Harry and Meghan quit their role as ‘working royals’ in 2020, stating at the time that they intended to work for a living so as to be financially independent of the royal family.
Spotify and Harry and Markle’s production company spectacularly ended their partnership last month after the couple released just one tepidly received podcast series, titled “Archetypes” in which Meghan interviewed several famous women and discussed words that she believes are used to hold back ambitious women.
Prince Harry did not participate in the podcasts, but it has subsequently been revealed that he had proposed a podcast series in which he would interview dignitaries and political leaders such as the Pope, Vladimir Putin, and Donald Trump and ask them questions about their childhoods.
Sources: New York Post, Daily Mail, Youtube.
