Meghan Markle and Prince Harry were branded “lazy” and “f–king grifters” by Spotify employees Friday after the podcasting network canned their $20 million deal.
Bill Simmons, the sportscaster who is also head of Spotify’s international sports content, said on his own podcast, “’The f–king grifters.’ That’s the podcast we shoulda launched with them.”
His attack deepened the couple’s crisis as sources said they were “lazy” compared to the Obamas, who also had a Spotify contract.
The collapse of the deal piles financial pressure on the Sussexes as exorbitant bills for their Montecito, Calif. lifestyle mount.
Their sprawling Tuscan-style estate, bought for $14.7 million in June 2020, has a hefty mortgage.
Annual property taxes alone cost $144,427 and there is staffing and maintenance on top.
The bill for the couple’s private security detail is believed to be about $2 million a year, there are legal fees from Harry’s unending battles with the British press — and they have to keep their Archewell company afloat without Spotify’s cash.
“They’re not broke,” stressed a source.
“But they’re going to have to keep spending their money, instead of banking it.”
The Sussexes’ Spotify deal was signed in 2020 but delivered just 13 hours of programming in two and half years — 12 episodes of Markle’s “Archetypes” podcast, and a one-off holiday special.
They will not be paid anything close to the full amount they could have earned under the deal.
Sources pointedly contrasted the Sussexes’ failed deal with the Obamas’ similar deal, which ended last year.
Although ‘Archetypes’ did well and got a couple of awards, when you go into a deal like this, to have just one series over that course of time is not great,” a source close to the Sussexes’ deal said.
“To put that into context, the Obamas and their production company, Higher Ground, delivered multiple new series.”
Simmons told how he had been called in to help Harry — unsuccessfully — saying, “I gotta get drunk one night and tell the story of this Zoom I had with Harry to try to help him with a podcast idea. It’s one of my best stories.
He added, “I wish I had been involved in the ‘Meghan and Harry leave Spotify’ negotiation. That’s a podcast we should’ve launched with them.”
Another industry insider added, “Spotify wants to focus on people who drive strong audiences, like Alex Cooper, Dax Shepard and Emma Chamberlain. There are a lot of great creators who are very eager.
“Meghan and Harry are the outlier on all of this, I think they have come off as being lazy and difficult.”
In a statement, both Spotify and Archewell said they “mutually agreed to part ways and are proud of the series we made together.”
Losing Spotify is a dramatic change in fortunes for the pair since they quit being full-time royals, pleaded for privacy and launched their new American lives with
