Love it or hate it, a big chunk of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s content since stepping back as working members of the royal family has been about their experience inside the Firm—think their sit-down with Oprah Winfrey, their six-part Netflix docuseries Harry & Meghan, and Harry’s memoir Spare. Multiple outlets report that Harry and Meghan know they went too far with attacking the royal family, never more so than in the continued fallout from the couple’s $20 million deal with Spotify falling apart last month.
Speaking specifically about Meghan, royal expert Tom Bower told OK “All she’s got is the baggage of the Oprah Winfrey interview and her damnation of the royal family in various successive interviews. That’s why she’s been so quiet the whole year. She knows they’ve probably gone too far, and she doesn’t know how to get out of it now. What is fascinating is how will it end? What will the climax be?”
Princess Diana’s former butler and confidante Paul Burrell said, per The Mirror, that Harry and Meghan “misunderstood what was expected of them” when it came to their deal with both Spotify and Netflix (which is still in play), and, after they decided to no longer attack the royal family, have “fallen short of everything that was expected.”
“Obviously, Spotify was a money-making exercise as much as Netflix was, and I think that Harry and Meghan both misunderstood what was expected of them,” he said. “Of course, both Spotify and Netflix wanted royal content. After all, that’s what they’re famous for. Both Netflix and Spotify signed up for that content, for their story, for their experience with the royal family and, sadly, I think it’s been shortcoming.”
Burrell’s solution? He said the couple need to “reinvent themselves” to secure future brand partnerships and should focus on continuing their charity and humanitarian work: “[Princess Diana] always said the price you pay for this wonderful lifestyle is public service, and you have to give something back,” said Burrell, speaking on behalf of Slingo. “Where is Harry and Meghan’s public service? They both have a great platform they could use for this. Maybe they will. I hope they will.”
Burrell predicted Meghan will “eventually go into beauty and fashion,” adding of a potential future fragrance deal “I’ve always said that, and I can see a bottle of ‘Meghan’ on someone’s dressing table, or perhaps ‘Duchess.’ Why wouldn’t someone want to take a risk with that and create something for Meghan? Then that would give her a foothold and a platform to launch herself into fashion. I think it’s another platform which can give her an opportunity to grow tentacles into different arenas, and I’ve always said that this is just a rung on the ladder. She’s climbing the ladder. She will eventually climb to the top of that ladder.”
