Spotify has ended its million-dollar deal with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry after 3 years and just one season of 'Archetypes'.
Amid the podcast boom, Meghan Markle announced a few months ago that she was not going to be outdone and that she would produce her own talk show for Spotify. In it, the Duchess has revealed some of the most unusual facts about her life, such as her experience as a stewardess on television or the fire in her son Archie's room, which was the biggest scare of her life.
The podcast, the result of a million-dollar agreement with the Facebook-owned platform, Spotify, consisted of conducting interviews with celebrities. Figures such as Paris Hilton, Serena William, Mariah Carey, Mindy Kaling ('The Office'), and Margaret Cho ('Psycho') passed in front of her microphone. The first season ended in 2022, with the last one broadcast last November and it seems that it will be the only batch of programs that will have this format since the signed agreement ended on June 16. Now the reason why the project has not been kept on track is coming to light.
Now one of the surprises of the recording of this podcast has emerged and that is that Allison Yarrow, a New York journalist who was invited to the program, although her episode was not broadcast, has revealed that she never spoke with the duchess but was in constant contact with the producer, Farrah Safari. The editing of the program makes it unnecessary for Meghan Markle to interview her guests because when we listen to it we hear her voice as a common thread punctuated by statements from the guests and her dramatizations, an edition that seems not to have been casual.
However, this is simply the tip of the iceberg. Other media suggest that the couple does not know how to manage the podcast and contribute ideas that would convince the production. This could have been the reason why Prince Harry did not do any podcasts despite also being included in the agreement.
In fact, Spotify's head of innovation and monetization, Bill Simmons, came to harshly criticize the couple whom he called "scammers" on his podcast, and the son of Charles III of the United Kingdom: “What is he doing? It's like, what is your talent? Why are we listening to you? You were born into a royal family and now you're gone, you sell documentaries and podcasts, no one cares what you have to say about anything unless you're talking about the royal family, and on top of that you complain about them." Some words that show that the couple has not been on good terms with the company.
