Spotify Asks for Money Back from Meghan Markle’s £15 Million Podcast Deal After Boycott

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's £15 million deal with Spotify is under scrutiny after users boycotted her new Archetypes podcast series.

Spotify has been urged to ask for their money back from the Duke and Duchess of Sussex after the launch of the new series was announced.

In early 2020, Meghan and Prince Harry quit as working members of the royal family before moving from the UK to the US.

Just weeks later, they signed a multi-year deal with Spotify, worth a reported £15 million.

At the end of the same year, they released a holiday special podcast episode featuring celebrity guests, as well as their young son Archie.

On Tuesday, Spotify dropped teaser clips of Archetypes, a new series in which Meghan Markle speaks to celebrity guests and investigates the labels that try to hold women back.

The podcast, a co-production between Archul Audio, Gimlet, and Spotify, is the first product of the audio branch of the couple's Archul brand, other than the holiday special from December 2020.

GB News presenter Darren Grimes retweeted a teaser clip from Spotify featuring Meghan, stating that Spotify reportedly gave the pair $18 million for this podcast two years ago.

He wrote, “Here, finally, is some material.

I wonder at which point they'll ask for their money back.”

In one teaser clip posted by the streaming giant on its Twitter page, Meghan says of the podcast series, “People should expect the real me in this and probably the me that they have never gotten to know.

Certainly not in the past few years where everything is through the lens of the media, as opposed to, hey, it's me.

I'm just excited to be myself and talk and be unfiltered and yeah, it's fun.”

The first episode features tennis legend and close friend Serena Williams speaking to Meghan about ambition, how both women juggle motherhood, and her evolution.

Also joining the conversation is Professor Laura Cray from the University of California, Berkeley, who expands on ambition as it relates to gender.

The Spotify description for this episode states, “Meghan talks to the one and only Serena Williams about the double standard women face when they are labeled ambitious and the ripple effect this has on other aspects of their lives.

This groundbreaking premiere episode also features Dr. Laura Cray, a leading expert on gender in the workplace.”

The second episode in the series, launching next week, will feature a conversation with singing and songwriting superstar Mariah Carey.

Meghan's new Archetypes podcast series with Spotify was announced in March of this year and will see the Duchess of Sussex investigate the labels that try to hold women back.

She will speak to historians and experts to uncover the origin of these stereotypes and have uncensored conversations with women who know all too well how these typecasts shape our narratives.

In a teaser when the series was announced, Meghan said, “This is how we talk about women, the words that raise our girls, and how the media reflects women back to us.

But where do these stereotypes come from?

And how do they keep showing up and defining our lives?

This is archetypes, the podcast where we dissect, explore, and subvert the labels that try to hold women back.

I'll have conversations with women who know all too well how these typecasts shape our narratives.

And I'll talk to historians to understand how we even got here in the first place.”

In other news, the Duke of Sussex Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle are being criticized for allegedly planning to renew their wedding vows in the US, four years after their marriage in 2018.

Royal expert Angela Levin has slammed the couple for their decision to have their second wedding in the US, saying it's an insult to the royal family.

She appeared on GB News recently and said that Meghan and Harry's second wedding in the US would be a big slap in the face to Queen Elizabeth and the other members of the royal family.

The International Business Times quoted Angela Levin as saying, “My view is that they want to show what a real proper wedding is going to be like.

They said they wanted something very American when their wedding was rather American.

It is also because Harry loves America so much that they wanted to redo it.