Prince Harry begs King Charles for money amid $245 million Netflix, Spotify, book deal

I googled polo ponies. Not because I hope Santa will finally bring me what I’ve been asking for the last three decades, but because I wanted to know how much they cost.

They are sleek, incredible animals, and according to the internet, they cost about $180,000 each. (And that’s before you even saw the hay bill.)

The reason I want to know is because this weekend, among the roughly 328 stories about Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Suss*x and their upcoming six-part Netflix series (including royal insiders calling the trailer set during the Prince and Princess Welsh). US tour “ugly, mean and pathetic”), we have this shock: they seem to have had some money problems.

According to SunKing Charles “stopped answering” his son’s “phone calls” asking for cash.

Harry reportedly “b*mbarded” the late Queen with “calls as she was placed on light duties due to her deteriorating mobility”, meaning it happened at some point since October last year when Her Majesty’s health crisis began. .

“Harry is not as rich as people think. He wanted money,” an insider told the newspaper. “The late Queen was always happy to talk to Harry, but when he asked for money she said, ‘Why don’t you talk to your father?’

“Harry told her that Charles was no longer answering his calls.

“When the Queen asked Charles what he was doing about it because she was taking so many calls, he told her, ‘I’m not a bank.’

Hold your (very expensive) horses here: Where did all the Suss*xes’ money go?

If you’ve been following Suss*x’s melodramatic history over the past few years, then you’d probably think the pair is heading positively into the doshas thanks to the extensive list of deals they’ve signed since filing in the US.

First came the news of their Netflix deal, then their Spotify deal, and then Penguin Random House stepped in and secured Harry’s talents through a multi-title deal. (Not a bad line for books for a man who got a B in art and a C in geography in his final exams.)

This was just the beginning.

Harry also managed to break new ground for the House of Windsor by going out and getting himself the most shocking thing of all – a job. In March 2021, it was revealed that he had joined the senior management of billion-dollar company BetterUp as director of impact.

While there has never been any indication of how much the Duke can pocket for a concert, or whether he is paid in cash, stock, or all the vegan bars he can swipe from the office kitchen, you have to imagine the value of this deal is significant.

Megan was also engaged in commercial activities.

In December 2020, Oprah Winfrey’s Instagram account revealed that Meghan had ventured into the world of entrepreneurship by investing in Clevr, a vegan latte brand. The following year, she added “author” to her resume by writing a children’s book (“a semi-literate vanity project,” according to Telegraph review) is called Bench.

October 2021 The newspaper “New York Times got the scoop that these enterprising Suss*xes were also having success on Wall Street and signed up as “influencers” with a fintech asset manager called Ethic.

Put it all together… carry one… and it looks like the couple managed to earn themselves a bunch of money they could dive into if they wanted to, Scrooge McDuck style.

Although no one knows the exact figure, the total is estimated to be in excess of $245 million. (It should be noted that Harry will donate $2.2 million of the proceeds from his book to his charity Sentebale and $540,000 to the UK charity WellChild.)

In short, when it came to their new life in the US, it was definitely a “rich man” case.

So again: where did all the money go?

Is Harry now looking for that bitcoin he threw on the back of one of their many beige sofas, or is he checking the back pockets of his favorite jeans for those Microsoft stock he got on his eighth birthday?

The couple didn’t exactly live an ascetic life financially, especially after they bought the Montecito estate for $20 million just a few months after arriving in America and have shown no signs of giving up their addiction to private jet travel since.

Then there’s Meghan’s wardrobe, which debuted over $114,000 worth of new pieces last year, Harry’s polo habit, and those $180,000 ponies. (It is unknown if the ones he rides as part of his Los Padres team actually belong to the Duke.)

Oh sure, it’s the accusations of institutional racism and brutal indifference to their mental health issues that get all the attention when it comes to the “why” of Megxit, however a number of reports also suggest that the money could be Pete Best. , he is the forgotten Beatle, of this story.

This year Courtiers: The Hidden Power of the CrownValentine Lowe writes that while on tour in Sydney in 2018, Meghan, “according to several staff members,” said, “I can’t believe I’m not getting paid for this.”

Elsewhere, he writes that in 2019, “she narrated a Disney wildlife documentary in exchange for a charitable donation,” but some insiders “suspected she wanted to make money after all.”

Tom Bauer, Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the War Between the Windsorswrites after the Suss*x Megxit b*mbing (aka an Instagram post heard around the world) that “money, they knew, was at the center of Meghan’s thoughts and it seemed like she intended to monetize the monarchy.”

After marrying a member of the royal family, according to Bauer, Meghan “began to understand that the British monarchy … has neither money nor an invincible luxury car Rolls-Royce.”

AT Looking for freedomAuthors Omid Scobie and Carolyn Duran report that when it came to discussing their royal “divorce” deal in early 2020, a “source familiar with the negotiations” told them that “the biggest fight was over money, because that it’s always.”

The question of who will pay the bills for the Suss*xes’ lives after the Palace has long proved tense and thought-provoking.

In last year’s Oprah outpouring, during which the Duke and Duchess were dressed as if they were going to a Neapolitan mezzo-soprano funeral, Harry sullenly said: “My family literally cut me off from finances.”

Embarrassing then, when it was later revealed that Charles continued to fund the Duke and Duchess after they flew off into the sunset and “gave them a substantial sum.”

(A spokesman for Suss*x then told the press that Harry Oprah’s comment “refers to the first quarter of the UK financial reporting period” and that it is “incorrect to suggest there is a contradiction”. Clearly then…)

However, we have not yet solved the riddle: where exactly is the $245 million that the world’s most famous expats should be earning?

And that’s before we even get to the most unusual element of this Sun the message that even after Harry and Meghan accused the royal family of institutional racism, ignoring their suffering and “complete neglect”, he reportedly still had the audacity to turn around and ask them for money.

According to the same report, “Charles insisted that his son email him instead” and that “Sun understands that Charles, then the Prince of Wales, asked his son to send inquiries by email through his personal assistant.”

The story doesn’t specify if Papin’s Bank agreed to help Harry, but if this report is accurate, then it would appear that Harry has some issues when it comes to both dollars and meaning. (And yes, that might be my dumbest pun yet…)

Daniela Elser is a writer and royal commentator with over 15 years of experience working with a range of leading Australian media outlets.