Harry and Meghan’s brand could crash after end of Spotify deal

Spotify’s decision to cut their losses and scrap their deal with Meghan and Harry could cost the couple $10million and does not bode well for their fading hope of becoming a $1billion brand, experts told MailOnline today.

Meghan Markle’s podcast Archetypes will not be renewed for a second season in what has been described as a mutual decision between the Sussexes and the streaming behemoth.

PR guru Mark Borkowski told MailOnline that it is very bad news for Meghan and Harry’s brand and a sign ‘their star is really falling’. He estimated that the failure could cost them up to $10million.

He said: ‘They didn’t get the quality of the product right and the gooey front of their new reality faded. The air is going out of their much hyped balloon and these little things begin to erode that juggernaut of hype that they delivered when they broke away from the Royal Family’.

”If no one is interested in anything they have to say about mental health or the Royal Family then their star is really falling. It is not a good day for the long term brand of Meghan and Harry’, he added. 

The ditching of the Spotify podcast now means the couple’s last major surviving deal is the £81million ($103.6million) with Netflix, the makers of their controversial documentary series.

Meghan recently signed with William Morris Endeavor (WME), the talent agency that boast clients like Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, tennis star Serena Williams, and other A-Listers amid rumours the relaunch of her lifestyle blog The Tig is viewed as the best way for her to make big money, especially given the success of Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop and Kourtney Kardashian’s Poosh.

An insider said last month: ‘This deal is about making Meghan a power player in Hollywood. It is about creating projects for her to produce – she wants to run the show’. 

Mr Borkowski said that he believes that they could lose up to 40 per cent of the $25million Spotify deal after it ended, which would be around $10million.

Archetypes launched with great fanfare last year, featuring stars and celebrity friends including tennis legend Serena Williams, pop megastar Mariah Carey and South African comedian Trevor Noah.

Speaking to singer Ms Carey describedthe idea of a ‘diva’ being ‘not something that I connect to’, only for Carey to reply: ‘You give us diva moments sometimes Meghan’ before adding that she believed it was a positive term.

But it was plagued by mixed reviews from critics, with The Times comparing the listening experience to being ‘locked in the relaxation room of a wellness spa with an unusually self-involved yoga instructor’. Spotify also reportedly became impatient about the pace of recordings – 12 episodes in two years.

There was also said to be tensions about how far down the charts her podcast and individual episodes dropped. Spotify was even accused of wrongly using its own official podcast chart to keep Meghan Markle at No 1 when she was lagging behind Joe Rogan and other stars in terms of daily listeners. And earlier this year the head of Spotify admitted he got a ‘little carried away’ and ‘over-invested’ in expensive podcasts as the streaming giant made a loss of £187million ($230m).

Brand and culture expert Nick Ede told MailOnline today that Spotify will have pulled the plug and it is a sign that the post-Megxit wave the couple were riding is crashing. He predicts more brands will dump them amid rumours Netflix are also unhappy.

‘It looks like Meghan’s brand isn’t such a box office winner and I can see a lot of other businesses following suit’, he said.

Mr Ede said that Meghan’s relauch of her blog, The Tig, is near-certain, as her options become more limited. He believes that the couple will have lost ‘many millions’ from the dead Spotify deal. 

Meghan dined with Gwyneth Paltrow a few weeks ago and will probably have grilled her on how she made Goop worth $250million.

Mr Ede said: ‘I think that this is optically a really negative position for Meghan and her brand to be in. With this news, and the news that Netflix are not happy with the output from the Archewell team, either she is set to lose millions from these deals.

‘It also shows that these huge brands have not as much confidence in Meghan and Harry and that the halo effect they were riding on post-Megxit is now beginning to fade.

‘Brands need to make money . They pay for talent not because of emotions but because of economy. I think that Meghan will build her own community and brand like Kourtney Kardashian and Poosh or Gwyneth Paltrow with Goop. So I think The Tig will probably have an audio arm where she can produce and play Archetypes and it will be available on all platforms, not just Spotify’.

The Spotify deal was viewed as a key plank in the couple’s post-Megxit plan to become financially independent from the Royal Family.

Mark Borkowski predicted in 2020 that if properly advised they could potentially become a billion-dollar brand to rival their friend Oprah Winfrey, but now admits this is unlikely after a series of wrong turns.

But since 2020 the couple have taken poor decisions, and ‘whining and moaning’, has left Americans and Brits fed up, commentators have said.

Meghan Markle began her US relaunch last month as she posed with youngsters on a charity visit and dined with Hollywood royalty before preparing to accept a ‘racial inequity’ award.

The Duchess of Sussex seemingly went to ground as Prince Harry promoted Spare in January and their popularity plunged – but the former actress is now making a very public comeback.

In May, she and Harry were spotted leaving a sushi restaurant in Montecito with celebrity couple Cameron Diaz and Benji Madden following a Michelin-star meal.

Gwyneth Paltrow and her husband, TV producer Brad Falchuk – as well as Bumble chief executive Whitney Wolfe Herd and her husband, Texas oil heir Michael Herd, are said to have dined with them.

There is speculation Meghan may have been bending Ms Paltrow’s ear about relaunching her blog, The Tig, having seen how the actress’s Goop lifestyle website has made at least £200million.

Her decision not to be in London to see her father-in-law crowned King allowed her to celebrate Archie’s fourth birthday with her mother Doria and friends – but it also gave her time to plot her next move in TV, books and podcasting, insiders claimed.

One source told The Telegraph that Archewell, the Sussexes’ broadcasting business, is looking to hire writers to create ‘feel-good’ shows including romantic comedies for Netflix.

Meghan was reportedly upset by an episode of South Park, which lampooned the couple by depicting two royals on a ‘Worldwide Privacy Tour’ while plugging a memoir.

With multi-million-pound bills to pay, the couple could front more shows for Netflix, who signed them up for a reported $100million in 2020. But their Spotify deal is no more.

But The Tig relaunch looks her most likely next move, unless a new book is announced. The lifestyle blog ran from 2014 to 2017 – at the height of her fame in TV show Suits – and featured everything from New Year’s resolutions to diet tips and fashion finds. She also explored feminist topics and shared musings from her childhood and career before she got her big break. If she were to relaunch it, she is now more famous and would be unshackled by any constraints of being a working royal.

The streaming giant and Meghan and Prince Harry’s audio production company Archewell Audio released a joint statement on Thursday night saying they have ‘mutually agreed to part ways and are proud of the series we made together.’

Meghan and her husband Harry reportedly signed a $20million deal with Spotify for the project in late 2020 but insiders close to the audio giant claim that the royal couple did not meet the productivity benchmark required to receive the full payout, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The move to ditch the Duchess of Sussex’s show, which explores the ‘labels that try to hold women back’, follows discussions months ago about renewing it for a second series.

Spotify was said to carry out conversations for a second series of Archetypes earlier on the year following the end of the first season, but conversations later stalled.

The talent agency that recently signed Meghan, WME, told the WSJ: ‘The team behind Archetypes remain proud of the podcast they created at Spotify. Meghan is continuing to develop more content for the Archetypes audience on another platform.’

The podcast reached the top of Spotify’s charts in the week it premiered.  

Spotify, Archwell and WME have been contacted by MailOnline. 

It comes as Spotify announced it would be laying off around 200 staff members – nearly two per cent of their workforce – from their podcast teams. It cited difficulties in making podcasts profitable, despite its popularity among listeners. 

Meghan only has Netflix left: £81m deal with streaming service is last surviving major deal in her media empire after Spotify dropped plans for a second series of her podcast

Meghan Markle was today dealt a crushing blow after bosses at streaming giant Spotify announced they were axing her Archetypes podcast after just one season.

The move is expected to see Meghan and husband Prince Harry losing the full £15million ($20million) payout after the show failed to hit production level targets – following a sluggish start.

In a statement, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex insisted the split was a ‘mutual’ decision between the couple and the streaming giant.

But the ditching of the podcast now means the royal pair’s last major surviving deal is the £81million ($103.6million) with Netflix.

The cancellation might prove a significant stumbling block in any ambition by the Sussexes’ to set up their own $1bn media empire, say experts, after their acrimonious split with the Royal Family, which this year saw Prince Harry bearing all in his explosive memoire, Spare – that earned him a staggering £16million.

Since quitting their royal duties in 2020 and jetting off to California to live in their new $14million nine-bedroom mansion, the couple have been building a complex network of ‘entertainment’ companies to help promote ‘their truth’.

Now MailOnline has delved into all the firms and media deals the couple have been linked with since starting their new life in America – as well as the other organisations still under the Sussexes’ umbrella.

Netflix – the last major mega deal left for Harry and Meghan:

Since ‘Megxit’, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex had signed lucrative deals said to be worth more than £100million with Netflix and Spotify, as well as Prince Harry’s three-book deal with Penguin Random House. 

Netflix reportedly paid the lion’s share of the huge cash injection, reportedly shelling out a whopping £81million for Harry and Meghan’s bombshell docuseries ‘Harry & Meghan’ last December as part of a multi-year deal with the firm. 

The series became Netflix’s second-highest ranked documentary ever – behind The Tinder Swindler. 

Harry and Meghan are now believed to be in talks to front their latest documentary with the global streaming titan, which will see them meeting communities in South Africa, sources have claimed.

The Sunday Mirror reports Prince Harry, 38, and Meghan, 41, will be shown helping to build houses in the villages they will visit with the series thought to take a ‘humanitarian’ focus as Meghan brings awareness to safe birthing practices.

A source told the newspaper: ‘The cameras will follow [The Sussexes] as they visit compounds and share medical education’.

They added the production will be a combined project from Netflix and the couple’s Archewell Foundation.

The source revealed: ‘Meghan is particularly keen to share information about giving birth safely with the women she meets.’

Harry and Meghan’s reported project in South Africa will be their third in conjunction with Netflix, following their bombshell six-part docuseries in December 2022 and their ‘Live to Lead’ series, which aired on New Year’s Eve in 2022.

It will document the couple’s ‘return to South Africa’, according to the source, following their royal tour which saw them visit the nation in 2019.

During the tour, the couple met with community members in townships around Cape Town while travelling with Prince Archie, and were pictured smiling and laughing as they danced with locals.

Reports of the Sussexes’ new series come as the Duchess signed with a new talent agency, William Morris Entertainment (WME) .

Meghan and Archewell will be represented by the firm, which also lists Serena Williams and Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson as clients, Variety reported – although it is understood the former Suits star will not be focusing on acting.

The Royal couple’s Archewell Foundation

Archwell is Harry and Meghan’s media and charitable foundation, set up following to their move to the US.

The Foundation, created by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex after they stepped down as senior royals in 2020, has been helping to fund charitable causes across the globe.

Based in the US, tax records released this year show it gave out about £2.5million ($3million) in grants and raised £10million ($13million) from wealthy benefactors.

Its understood the charity is mostly propped up by two wealthy philanthropists who contributed a combined $13million, while taking in a meager $4,470 (£3,480) from the public for their work.

In total, Archewell received a total $13,005,660 – with $10million coming from an individual donor as DailyMail.com first reported, $3million from another, and $4,470 from other ‘contributions and grants. The remaining $1,190 came from ‘investment income’, documents obtained by DailyMail.com reveal. 

Prince Harry’s explosive memoir Spare netted him a small fortune

As well as the couple’s massive contract with Netflix, Prince Harry also bagged a lucrative book deal to produce his tell-all memoir Spare – which netted £16million.

The royal’s bombshell autobiography became the fastest-selling non-fiction book since records began in 1998, publishers claimed, selling more than 3.2million copies worldwide in its first week. 

While in the UK, it notched up more than 750,000 sales during the same period, according to publishers Transworld, the UK division of Penguin Random House.

It’s understood that Prince Harry has donated a sizeable amount of the money made from the publication to charity, with the father-of-two expected to give somewhere in the region of £1.6million to good causes.  

The Duke and Duchess’s ‘entertainment’ firms in Delaware tax-haven 

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have set up a complex network of ‘entertainment’ firms all based in the opaque tax haven state of Delaware – despite living and doing business in California.

Meghan’s longtime lawyer and business manager have incorporated 11 companies and a trust for the couple since April 2020, state filings reveal, including a firm apparently set up for Harry’s multi-million-dollar memoir book deal.

A further two, Cloverdale Inc and Riversoul. were added by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex earlier this year to their growing business empire.

Names for the companies include an intriguing Japanese term for deal making, a reference to Meghan’s freckles in Spanish, a South American river, and a possible allusion to a $44,000 ‘babymoon’ getaway the couple took in 2019.

The firms are all headquartered in the Beverly Hills offices of attorney Richard Genow, who has worked with the Duchess for years.

Also appearing on company filings for all 11 firms is her business manager Andrew Meyer, a well-connected money guru whose clients have included Jon Chu, Anna Kendrick, Adam Driver, Kathryn Hahn, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Ellen Pompeo.

Among the companies inked by Meyer and Genow are two publishing firms. The first, Peca Publishing LLC, was set up in September 2020 and used by Meghan to hold the rights for her children’s book The Bench.

The same day a second company was incorporated, Orinoco Publishing LLC – though it didn’t register its status in California until December 22, 2021.

It is unclear what the couple will use Orinoco for, though it is likely it was set up to hold the rights for Harry’s blockbuster book deal with Penguin Random House for his memoir, due for publication later this year.

The word ‘peca’ means freckle in Spanish, and appears to be a reference to a book Meghan wrote in eighth grade titled A Face Without Freckles… Is a Night Without Stars, a copy of which currently sits in the Congressional Library. 

Harry’s company Orinoco Publishing LLC may be a reference to one of his mother’s favorite songs.

In an interview for the 2017 ITV documentary Diana: Our mother, Her Life and Legacy, the prince recalled a fond memory of sitting in the passenger seat while his mother drove her BMW with the top down, listening to popular 1980s artist Enya.

One of her hits was called Orinoco Flow.

Its chorus includes the repeated refrain ‘sail away’, and one line even mentions his new home of California: ‘From Bali to Cali, far beneath the Coral Sea.’

Orinoco is also the name of a South American river, which flows through Venezuela and Colombia.

Some of the Sussexes’ Delaware firms were set up to hold the trademarks for their charity Archewell and its associated companies.

In a complicated structure, Harry and Meghan set up Cobblestone Lane LLC as the holder of the Archewell logo, but lodged another trademark filing for a second logo, with just the letters ‘AW’ on top of each other, under a different Delaware firm, IPHW LLC.

Cobblestone Lane LLC was incorporated in Delaware in February 2020 and five days later was used as the applicant to file for the Archewell trademark.

Though both Archewell and Cobblestone are based in California, there were no filings for the LLC registered with the California Secretary of State.

On January 2, 2022 the company filed an ‘application to register as a foreign limited liability company’, noting it was incorporated on February 27, 2020 in Delaware. Unlike Harry and Meghan’s other companies, it shares a business address with the British Consulate-General in Los Angeles, rather than being based at Genow’s offices. 

Delaware-based IPHW did register with the California Secretary of State on July 16 2021.

Companies that have already drawn international attention over the Sussexes’ high-profile entertainment deals with Netflix and Spotify include Archewell Audio LLC and Archewell Productions LLC.  

But Meghan’s money men also incorporated Baobab Holdings LLC in February last year, writing in company documents that the firm was for ‘investments’.

The baobab is a distinctive tree native to Africa and Australia.

Two ‘entertainment’ companies founded by Genow and Meyer in January last year were Bridgemount LLC and Hampshire LLC.

The latter’s name may be a reference to Harry and Meghan’s memorable holiday at a Hampshire five-star 18th century Georgian mansion where they had a three-night stay in the final weeks of Meghan’s pregnancy in Spring 2019.

A friend told the Sun at the time: ‘Meghan is only a couple of weeks away from giving birth, so Harry really wanted to treat her.’

Nemawashi Holdings, LLC was set up September 2020 and was described only as a ‘holding company’ by Genow and Meyer. Nemawashi is a Japanese term meaning the informal process of quietly laying the foundation for a project.

Another company set up a month earlier is called RPV Holdings, LLC.

Genow told the Hollywood Reporter in November that he has known Meyer professionally and as a friend for more than 15 years.

Meyer, a certified public accountant and founder of Beverly Hills entertainment wealth management firm Freemark Financial, lives with his wife Stephanie in a $6million, six-bed, 6,000 sq ft property in the exclusive neighborhood of Holmby Hills, Los Angeles. 

Even before 2020 Meghan’s financial team already discreetly made a significant move involving the Duchess’s company Frim Fram Inc – the firm behind her popular lifestyle blog The Tig.

According to Delaware business records, on December 30, 2019, Frim Fram Inc was registered as a new corporation in the state.