Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's Spotify axe explained in worrying new details
Spotify has announced they've taken a huge hit after parting ways with a number of big-name clients, including Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
The streaming giant has revealed they made a loss of $43million (£34million) in the second quarter of the year, blaming "write offs and contract termination" costs. They said they've been working on "rationalising our podcast content portfolio".
Meghan and Harry's Archewell Audio signed an exclusive $25million (£19million) deal with Spotify as they attempted to be financially independent after stepping back from the Royal Family.
However, they released a statement announcing their decision to part ways last month which read: "Spotify and Archewell Audio have mutually agreed to part ways and are proud of the series we made together."
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry parted ways with Spotify last month (Getty Images)Daniel Ek, Spotify's CEO, told GB News the company has been "stepping out of some deals and relationships that haven’t worked out."
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He said that in some cases: "We overpaid relative to what we should have done."
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle stepped back from Spotify last month (AFP via Getty Images)Spotify also announced a wave of job cuts last month, axing 200 jobs from its podcast business in what was the second round of redundancies this year. Back in January, Dawn Ostroff, who led the negotiations on Meghan and Harry's deal, left the company.
Meghan and Harry were criticised by one of Spotify's top executives after stepping away from the platform.
The pair were branded "grifters" (zz/NDZ/STAR MAX/IPx)Bill Simmons, head of podcast innovation and monetisation at Spotify, hit out at the couple as he labelled them "f***ing grifters".
Speaking in an episode of his own podcast, he said: "The f***ing grifters. That's the podcast we should have launched with them."
Bill added: "I've got to get drunk one night and tell the story of the Zoom I had with Harry to try and help him with a podcast idea. It's one of my best stories."
Meghan hosted the podcast Archetypes which ran for 12 episodes from August last year.
She spoke to a number of celebrities, such as Paris Hilton and Serena Williams, and experts about history of stereotypes levelled against women.
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