Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s dealings with Netflix got ugly during the former royal couple’s five-year deal with the streamer, according to new reporting from Variety.
The site reported that “insiders” claim the Duchess of Sussex would “talk over or recast Prince Harry’s thoughts, sometimes while he is mid-sentence,” during virtual and in-person meetings. Markle would precede each interruption with “a touch to the arm or thigh.”
Her husband, Prince Harry, called the report “categorically false,” as did the couple’s lawyer, Michael J. Kump, who said the claim “seems calculated to play into the misogynistic characterization of her bossing her husband around.”
Markle has been hit with constant allegations about alleged bad behavior since she and Prince Harry stepped down as working royals and fled to California in 2020. Variety reported that the Netflix deal the couple struck soon after arriving in the U.S. was sour from the start, with sources saying they believed Markle was playing Netflix by keeping them out of the loop on Prince Harry’s Spare book release and their tell-all interview with Oprah Winfrey ahead of the premiere of Netflix’s docuseries about their exit from royal life, Harry & Meghan. The streamer wanted to save exclusive details about their exit for the docuseries.
A spokesperson for the Sussexes told the site the claims were also “categorically false,” and that Netflix was aware of the Winfrey interview and shared “open communication” with the Sussexes before the release of Spare, “to coordinate timing between book and series.”
Still, sources insisted that by the end of the couple’s five-year deal, Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos was “fed up” with the ex-royals.
Variety’s sources claimed that Sarandos, who is also neighbors with the couple in Montecito, had begun ducking their calls, going so far as to say he wouldn’t speak with Markle by phone unless a lawyer was present. A Netflix spokesperson called the claims “absolutely inaccurate,” and Kump declared them “blatantly false.” Kump added, “Meghan texts and speaks with Mr. Sarandos regularly, and has been to his home, sans lawyers.”
Sources told the site that Markle would “disappear” during Zoom calls and that Netflix teams were informed these disappearances were due to her being “offended by something that was said.”
Markle shares two children, Princess Lilibet “Lili” Diana, 4, and Prince Archie Harrison, 6, with Prince Harry. Her lawyer told the site that Meghan is “conscious of shielding her team from the distraction of children.”
Whatever the state of their relationship, the Sussexes were never ever to get a single scripted project off the ground during their almost six-year deal with the streamer. The second season of Markle’s With Love, Meghan series fell flat. Netflix decided not to bring the show back for a third season.
In August, Netflix inked a new deal with the Sussexes without the exclusivity, opting for a first-look deal instead. The downgrade is not uncommon, as the Obamas made a similar pact after transitioning from their exclusive deal with the streamer into a first-look in June 2024.
