Prince Harry, Meghan Markle face pressure to 'trash royals' again for ratings

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are said to be under pressure to deliver on their multimillion-dollar deal with Netflix and Spotify, and they might be forced to do another explosive interview about the royals.

PR expert Nick Ede told Closer magazine that "the media giants were all chomping at the bit" when the couple "first moved to Hollywood and branched out on their own." They were then considered to be "hot property."

In turn, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex "were keen to make as much money as possible, so they signed legacy deals – contracts lasting for more than five years – which gave them a hell of a lot of money." These include multimillion-dollar contracts with Netflix and Spotify to produce original content. Ede acknowledged that while these are great deals, it also means they have to deliver, which is the problem.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have so far announced two Netflix projects, "Pearl" and "Heart of Invictus." But the streamer recently dropped "Pearl" because of financial constraints. The duchess has yet to release her first Spotify podcast called "Archetypes" in the summer. Apart from these, "there's no escaping that they haven't produced much yet."

However, Ede noted that the couple made a lot of money when they sat down to talk about the royals with Oprah Winfrey in March 2021. The 37-year-old also intrigued viewers when he criticised Prince Charles in the Apple TV+ documentary "The Me You Can't See" and talked about his pain growing up with drugs and alcohol in Dax Shepard's "Armchair Expert" podcast.

He said the couple seems to get great monetary gains by capitalising on their rift with the royals. He said, "That's what the media giants will want because their biggest audience are people who love to hear them trash the royal family. That is what will get them the ratings."

Ede advised Prince Harry and Meghan Markle "to just create the content and get stuff out." He also thought that they made a wrong move by promoting "those massive deals" ahead of time without tangible projects yet, because "now they are under a huge amount of pressure and scrutiny." He warned that the lack of content will only get people "confused, frustrated or bored otherwise."