'I'm not surprised it's coming to an end': Spotify bosses were likely horrified that Prince Harry only signed on for money, says royal expert

A royal expert says Spotify bosses were likely "horrified" by Prince Harry's admission that he signed on to deals due to the need to afford security for his family when they first left the royal family.

In the Sussex's infamous March 2021 interview with Oprah, Harry revealed that the multi-million dollar deals he signed with Spotify and Netflix were "never part of the plan", explaining, "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."

Royal expert Richard Eden told Palace Confidential that Spotify bosses were likely not impressed with the Prince's seemingly cavalier approach to the project, explaining, "It takes an awful lot of work [to produce a podcast]. It's serious work, it's planning," he said, "You can't just turn up and [say], "Oh, what shall we do today?'

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"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."

Meghan Markle's podcast with Spotify, Archetypes, was canned last week after it was reportedly "underperforming"

A joint statement between Spotify and the Sussex's company, Archewell Audio, read: "Spotify and Archewell Audio have mutually agreed to part ways and are proud of the series we made together."

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A representative from Meghan's talent agency WME also told the Wall Street Journal: "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 deal was signed back in 2020 to a reported value of £15.6m ($29.7m), with many commercial arrangements planned.

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Instead, only Archetypes was released and cancelled after 12 episodes, featuring big names such as Serena Williams, Mariah Carey, Sophie Gregoire Trudeau, Candice Bushnell and Andy Cohen.

Spotify's chief executive Danny Ek spoke about the audio streamer's $USD 1 billion ($1.49 billion) spending spree in 2019, agreeing they had been "overpaying and overinvesting."

"We're going to be very diligent in how we invest in future content deals," he told financial analysts.

"And the ones that aren't performing, obviously, we won't renew.

"And the ones that are performing, we will obviously look at those on a case-by-case basis on the relative value."

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