Prince Harry and Meghan Markle React to Their Spotify Deal Being Canceled

Spotify has ended its highly publicized podcast deal with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle—which took years to get off the ground due to various delays—despite the fact that it won the “top podcast” award at the People’s Choice Awards in Los Angeles last year.

Announcing the news, Spotify confirmed it is not renewing Meghan’s podcast—Archetypes—which ran for 12 episodes in 2022. In a joint statement shared later, the streaming giant and the Sussexes revealed that they’d “mutually agreed to part ways.”

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s deal with Spotify was estimated to be worth $25M (£18M) in late 2020 and was one of the major commercial agreements the couple entered into after stepping back from royal life that same year. What’s more, the contract was billed as a relationship that would produce numerous series—but things have been called off after just one.

Shortly after the podcast deal was announced, Harry said that the series would “bring forward different perspectives and voices that perhaps you haven’t heard before,” and Meghan went on to speak to an array of high-profile figures, including Serena Williams and Paris Hilton, about the stereotypes women face.

“I loved digging my hands into the process, sitting up late at night in bed, working on the writing and creative,” Meghan said of Archetypes during its run on Spotify. “And I loved digging deep into meaningful conversation with my diverse and inspiring guests, laughing and learning with them. It has been such a labor of love.”

But all might not be lost for fans of the podcast. According to the Wall Street Journal, which quoted an Archewell spokesperson, Meghan is “continuing to develop more content for the Archetypes audience on another platform.”

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