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Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are called ‘f*****g grifters’ by Spotify exec Bill Simmons
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are facing criticism from a top Spotify podcast executive, Bill Simmons, who has referred to the couple as “f*****g grifters.”
This comes after the end of the couple’s reported $20 million deal with Spotify was announced on Thursday evening.
Spotify and the Sussexes’ audio production company Archewell Audio released a joint statement saying they have “mutually agreed to part ways and are proud of the series we made together.”
Simmons, Head of Podcast Innovation and Monetization at Spotify, condemned the pair in an episode of his own podcast on Friday.
“The f***ing grifters.
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That’s the podcast we should have launched with them,” he said.
Simmons, a sportswriter and founder of sports and pop culture website and podcast network The Ringer, sold it to Spotify in 2020 for $200 million.
He then joined Spotify, and has long been critical of the couple.
The couple produced only one 13-episode series of a podcast for the company, and then split.
Markle’s Spotify podcast Archetypes will not be renewed for a second season.
Insiders close to the audio giant claim the royal couple did not meet the productivity benchmark required to receive the full payout.
However, Markle is still planning to create more podcasts and find a new home for her series, which previously featured her friend and tennis star Serena Williams, pop sensation Mariah Carey, and South African comedian Trevor Noah.
The move to ditch the Duchess of Sussex’s show, which explores the “labels that try to hold women back,” follows discussions months ago about renewing it for a second series.
Discussions to publish more content from Archewell – the production company owned by the royal couple – are ongoing, the Wall Street Journal reported.
There are also suggestions that Meghan could soon look to bring back her wellness and lifestyle blog The Tig, in a bid to rival Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop website, which is reportedly worth $250 million.
Since officially leaving the Royal Family and moving to California in 2020, the Duke and Duchess have pursued a number of different avenues to bring in revenue.
This includes Prince Harry’s bombshell memoir Spare which he created as part of a $20 million deal with Penguin Books.
The couple also teamed up with Netflix to produce the docu-series called Harry And Meghan, with the streaming giant reportedly paying the pair $100 million for the six-episode series.
Spotify has recently laid off staff and scaled back big-name talent in favor of emphasizing the creator economy.
The streaming giant announced it would be laying off around 200 staff members – around two per cent of their workforce – who work within their podcast teams.
It cited difficulties in making podcasts profitable, despite its popularity among listeners.
The axing of the show comes after sources close to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex claimed the pair would stop making tell-all Netflix documentaries, publishing memoirs, and sitting down for interviews discussing the royal family, as they have “nothing left to say.”
The talent agency that recently signed Meghan, WME, 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.”
Meghan signed off her 13th and last Archetypes episode with a defiant piece of poetry about survival, but made no mention of a potential second series.
Closing the show, which featured men for the first time, she quoted the Greek post-war poet Dinos Christianopoulos and said: “What didn’t you do to bury me?
But you forgot that I was a seed.”
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