Here's Why Meghan Markle Podcast Turned Out to Be a Disaster

When Prince Harry and Meghan Markle distanced themselves from the British royal family in 2020, people rightfully wondered what the prince and the former actress would do to secure their luxurious lifestyle. Fortunately, the answer soon followed, as the couple struck a number of lucrative deals with media outlets, ensuring their fortune won't shrink in the following years.

Reportedly, the Sussexes raked in dozens of millions for their high-profile interviews and the Netflix docu-series, released in December 2022. A few months before that, Meghan Markle was busy with her podcast on Spotify, releasing a total of 12 episodes between August and November of last year. But looks like the venture didn't work out, and Meghan's podcast got canceled earlier this June.

So what happened between the Duchess and Spotify, and how come her podcast was so short-lived?

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex signed on to produce content for Spotify, reportedly receiving $20 million dollars in upfront payment. Their partnership was meant to span several years and include a few podcast series produced for the platform, but ultimately, only Meghan's podcast was released, and Spotify's negotiations with Prince Harry never yielded any significant results.

In August 2022, Meghan Markle debuted her podcast, Archetypes, where she talked with famous people and experts about stereotypes affecting women. While this topic sounded intriguing, the listeners weren't satisfied with the quality of the podcast and suspected that Meghan wasn't actually interviewing the guests she invited.

While we don't even know for sure if Markle wrote the questions herself, it looks like she simply gave those questions to someone else to conduct the interviews. Her voice was then edited into the material, and fans who listened to the podcast claim that these insertions are noticeable and seem totally out of place.

On top of that, people say that many of the Duchess' remarks sound unnatural, and the narration she gives would be more suitable for an online book or a wildlife TV program.

All in all, it's unclear why Spotify decided to give $20 million to someone who has no skills experience required to produce a successful podcast, so it's no wonder that their partnership with Harry and Meghan ended so quickly. In his own podcast, Spotify executive Bill Simmons spoke unflatteringly about the couple:

'"The F**king Grifters",' Simmons said, 'That's the podcast we should have launched with them.'

The big boss clearly isn't happy about how Meghan and Harry fulfilled their part of the deal, so it must be a good thing that Spotify called it quits before wasting a few more millions of dollars on the royal 'grifters.'

Source: CNN.