All Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's Post-Royal Projects and How They Ended

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have parted ways with Spotify less than three years into a multi-million dollar deal—but the partnership was just one of nine pursued during their post-royal lives.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have signed a spate of deals, starting a few months before they quit as working royals, and with most signed by 2021.

The plethora of partnerships will have given the couple multiple sources of income while paying off a $9.2 million mortgage on their Montecito mansion, and with hefty costs for their private security detail and staff.

Disney

Meghan narrated the 2020 Disney nature movie Elephants, which followed African elephant Shani and her son, Jomo, on their journey from the Kalahari Desert to the Zambezi River.

Harry famously pitched Meghan as a voiceover actor directly to Disney CEO Bob Iger during a royal engagement at the premiere of The Lion King in July 2019. Meghan was approached by the filmmakers that autumn.

The film got a critics' score of 81 percent on Rotten Tomatoes with an audience score of 74 percent, earning both positive and negative reviews.

Harpo Productions

Prince Harry agreed to make an Apple TV mental health documentary with Oprah Winfrey and her production company Harpo before he formally quit royal duties.

However, by the time May 2021 docuseries The Me You Can't See dropped it had been upstaged by Harry and Meghan's joint interview with Oprah, which aired on CBS two months earlier in March.

In Oprah With Meghan and Harry, the duchess accused an unnamed royal of having "concerns and conversations" about how dark her unborn child's skin might be.

Harry later said in interviews that she did not intend to accuse the royals of racism, but rather unconscious bias, and hinted it may have been curiosity of a kind frequently experienced by the families of mixed-race couples.

Meghan said she was falsely blamed in the media for making Kate Middleton cry and had experienced suicidal thoughts while pregnant, amid a media backlash.

The interviews sent shockwaves through British society and triggered a global conversation about racism, though Harry's later comments sucked some of the momentum out of the debate.

The Me You Can't See renewed the couple's criticisms of the royal family, palace and media in May 2021, a month after the death of Prince Philip, Harry's grandfather.

The prince said: "I thought my family would help but every single ask, request, warning, whatever it is, got met with total silence or total neglect.

"We spent four years trying to make it work. We did everything that we possibly could to stay there and carry on doing the role and doing the job, but Meghan was struggling."

Harry Walker Agency

Harry and Meghan signed with public-speaking firm the Harry Walker Agency, which also represented Barack and Michelle Obama, in June 2020.

The pair had in February that year done a speaking gig at a JP Morgan Alternative Investment Summit and Meghan backed Black Lives Matter in a speech to graduating students of her old high school Immaculate Heart, though it was never said whether either was part of the HWA deal.

Opportunities for public speaking in person were few and far between during COVID-19. If the couple are still appearing as HWA speakers, the work has not been widely publicized.

Netflix

Their biggest early project was a multi-year mega-deal with Netflix, signed in September 2020, which ultimately led to the couple's December 2022 project Harry & Meghan.

The show sailed to the top of the Netflix charts but critics from respected publications, including Variety, questioned whether they were simply rehashing a story already told about their struggle with royal life.

Later that month, they released the less talked about Live to Lead, which was inspired by Nelson Mandela and looked at the stories of world leaders.

Summer 2023 will also see the release of Heart of Invictus, a documentary looking at Prince Harry's Invictus Games tournament for ex-service personnel.

Spotify

Meghan and Harry signed with Spotify in December 2020 and initially made a festive special, in which their son Prince Archie was a surprise guest.

A full weekly podcast was promised for 2021 but no further content appeared until August 2022, when Meghan debuted Archetypes.

The show initially soared to the top of the Spotify charts with the first episode featuring an interview with Serena Williams, though later ones were less widely streamed.

Prince Harry never made a Spotify podcast of his own despite executive Bill Simmons revealing he had at one stage been brought in to help the duke develop an idea.

Simmons, the company's head of podcast innovation and monetization, described the couple as "f****** grifters."

Clevr Blends

Meghan invested in oat milk latte start-up Clevr Blends in December 2020, which charges $28 for a bag of 14 instant lattes.

The duchess got an Instagram endorsement for the company from Oprah Winfrey in the early days of the deal.

Penguin Random House

Meghan published her book The Bench through Random House Children's Books in June 2021, based on a poem she wrote for Harry for his first Father's Day in 2019.

By far the bigger project, however, was Harry's memoir Spare, which hit bookshelves in January 2023.

The book was the fastest-selling in history, but precipitated a major slump in the couple's popularity.

Harry was ridiculed over a section in which he described putting Princess Diana's favored lip cream on his frost-bitten penis as his mother's memory wafted back to him.

BetterUp

Prince Harry joined tech start-up BetterUp as chief impact officer in March 2021, helping to promote the company's career coaching platform.

The duke is still working for BetterUp and in March told its Uplift Summit: "For me, personally, I get so much out of helping other people. To be in the service of others is what drives me, what gets me out of bed every day. Then you have kids."

WME

Meghan has signed with high-powered talent agency WME, part of the same corporate network as HWA, in April 2023.

After the backlash from Spare and with the Spotify deal collapsing, the agency will be in charge of breathing new life into Meghan's career.

Jack Royston is chief royal correspondent for Newsweek, based in London. You can find him on Twitter at @jack_royston and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.

Do you have a question about King Charles III, William and Kate, Meghan and Harry, or their family that you would like our experienced royal correspondents to answer? Email royals@newsweek.com. We'd love to hear from you.