Prince Harry, Meghan Markle’s axed Spotify deal cost jobs: expert

Many talented people have “lost their jobs” due to the money spent on Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s failed Spotify deal, a royal expert claimed.

Speaking on Palace Confidential, Daily Mail’s Royal Editor Rebecca English talked about the criticism over how the ending of the royal couple’s Spotify deal affected many jobs and people.

“Part of this problem with Harry and Meghan is a problem with the entire podcast industry,” English said.

“There was a flurry to sign massive names and throw big money at them without actually knowing if they had an idea which was workable.”

She continued, “That’s now falling around the industry’s ears and a lot of good people: producers and engineers – these people are losing their jobs, and there’s a lot of anger because people like Harry and Meghan with significant amounts of money, so there’s quite a lot of bad feeling about it.”

It was reported earlier this month that Spotify was set to slash a further 200 jobs after the Duke and Duchess’ audio deal failed to bring in the cash they expected.

Harry, 39, and Meghan, 41, inked an agreement with the audio giant back in December 2020, estimated to be worth a whopping $20 million.

The streaming giant is now having to let a significant number of staffers go due to the money lost in the deal.

A source previously told The Post that the Archewell media company launched by Harry and Meghan didn’t produce enough content to receive the full payout of the $20 million deal they agreed to.

The panel also discussed United Talent Agency CEO Jeremy Zimmer’s statement that Meghan is “not a great talent,” and Daily Mail’s Diary Editor Richard Eden said that these comments were “extraordinary.”

Zimmer admitted last week that he wasn’t surprised about Spotify’s breakup with Harry and Meghan, telling Semafor during the Cannes Lions advertising festival, “Turns out Meghan Markle was not a great audio talent, or necessarily any kind of talent. And, you know, just because you’re famous doesn’t make you great at something.”

“These are extraordinary comments really because it came from one of Hollywood’s top agents,” Eden said of Zimmer’s comments. “Usually, agents are very diplomatic because even if they’re not their client now they’ll be thinking they could be in the future and they don’t want to be seen criticizing stars.”

“If you’ve got talent agents that are willing to be so rude about you in public, I can imagine it being off-putting to lots of people,” he continued, adding that the critiques could add a “toxic element” to their personalities.

This comes after a previous Palace Confidential where Eden said Spotify executives were likely “horrified” by comments Prince Harry made to Oprah Winfrey after he signed a multimillion-dollar deal with the company.

Speaking about Spotify and a separate arrangement with Netflix during the sit-down with Winfrey, Harry downplayed their significance, saying they were “never part of the plan.”

“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,” he added, implying that he was forced to sign the deals out of desperation.

Sportswriter and podcaster Bill Simmons also slammed the couple in the wake of the fractured deal, saying he once met with Harry about podcast ideas and calling the pair “f – – king grifters” in a recent episode of his own audio show.

Meanwhile, a report recently alleged that Markle’s interviews for her “Archetypes” podcast were not conducted by her.

Podnews reported that some of the show’s interviews were done by members of the duchess’s staff — and audio of her voice asking the questions was clipped in later.

Since the royal couple’s deal with Spotify began 2½ years ago, “Archetypes” — which premiered in August last year — was the only project to come out of the deal and featured just 12 episodes.