Netflix will not be renewing the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s reported $100m (£73m) agreement with the streaming service.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle signed the five-year deal in 2020. The couple went on to feature in several Netflix productions. Their docuseries Harry and Meghan, released in 2022, racked up 64 million viewing hours.
In 2024, the duke went on to release Polo, about his love for the sport of polo, with the series said to have drawn only 500,000 views. Meghan, meanwhile, released a lifestyle show titled With Love, Meghan, earlier this year.
Their deal will not be renewed, according to People.
The news comes shortly after reports The Sun said: “The deal is done; no more shows will be made.”
“There’s no animosity from either side,” a source told the publication. “Things have just run their course.”
They added: “Netflix feel they’ve got all they can from the couple. Netflix were clever in that they got a hell of a lot of viewers for the first documentary series, and knew, realistically, it would prove the zenith of content from the Montecito pair.
“They’re not unhappy with how things turned out – they got those initial hits, and produced one of the most talked-about shows of all time. The content got weaker from there on but, frankly, for £20million a year, anything was better than nothing.
The report also claimed that Netflix executives were “well aware” that the duchess’s priority now “is her own brand”, and that the streamer didn’t want to “play second fiddle to that”.
“Publicly, there will not be a statement and of course, if things change dramatically, they’d be open to a one-off project down the line,” the source continued. “But for Harry, especially, this will be a blow. It’s a huge loss of revenue.”
The Independent has contacted Netflix and representatives for the couple for comment.
Meghan’s cooking programme was mocked on social media earlier this year. It was called “queasy” and “exhausting” by The Independent’s Katie Rosseinsky in a one-star review of the show.
“The show simultaneously strains for aspiration and relatability in a way that never gels,” she wrote.
A second series of the show is set to be released in autumn this year.
