Netflix, once the undisputed king of streaming with its lineup of gripping dramas, spine-chilling thrillers, and Emmy-winning hits, now finds itself entangled in an expensive miscalculation.
The company, known for its bold content investments, shelled out a staggering £85 million for a deal with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, expecting groundbreaking content. Instead, it ended up with a painfully dull spectacle that failed to engage audiences.
One of the biggest disappointments was With Love, Meghan, an eight-episode series in which Meghan Markle, in all her self-proclaimed expertise, offers advice on setting tables and hosting dinner parties. Viewers were unimpressed, as reflected in its dismal reception—a 33% critics' rating on Rotten Tomatoes and an even worse 20% audience score. Not even the most devoted Sussex supporters could pretend to care. The show plummeted out of Netflix’s top 10 in under a week, leaving insiders scrambling to mitigate the damage.
Reports indicate that Netflix executives deeply regret the £85 million deal, which now seems like an extravagant waste of resources. Essentially, they paid for what amounts to a glorified social media cooking tutorial wrapped in a royal price tag. The math is staggering—£4.6 million per episode across Meghan and Harry’s projects, an astronomical amount for content that failed to generate buzz. By comparison, The Crown, a show about the royals that people actually want to watch, costs approximately £56 million per entire season.
Now Netflix faces a difficult choice: keep pushing Meghan-centric content onto an indifferent public or cut its losses and move on. The latter option is starting to look far more appealing. Just as backlash reached its peak, Meghan attempted her usual damage control, spinning the narrative to fit her version of reality. She excitedly announced that With Love, Meghan had been renewed for a second season. However, Netflix quickly corrected the record—the so-called renewal was nothing more than pre-filmed episodes shot back-to-back with the first season. There was no new contract, no triumphant comeback, just another misleading spin.
This entire debacle has served as an expensive lesson for Netflix: when you invest in professional victims, disappointment is inevitable. Now, the streaming giant is trying to extract itself from the Sussex saga as quietly and gracefully as possible. If it wants to salvage its reputation, the best course of action might be to publicly sever ties and wish them the best on their “un-Sussex-ful” future endeavors. Netflix bet big on the couple’s brand, only to discover that public interest in Meghan and Harry doesn’t extend beyond royal gossip and scandals. People aren’t interested in watching Meghan bake cookies and preach about mindfulness—they want drama, insider secrets, and real intrigue. If Netflix executives failed to predict that, well, that’s entirely on them.
