Shock Prince Harry inheritance revelation emerges
The estimated $20 million-plus left to the Duke of Sussex by Diana and the Queen Mother “has largely been spent”, according to a report.
There was one thing that no one told Cinderella – princes are c**p at money. Then Prince Charles had to borrow from the Bank of Mum to pay for his divorce from Diana, Princess of Wales; Prince Philip once blurted out, “We go into the red next year … I shall have to give up polo”; and the former Prince Andrew was sued for forgetting to pay $12 million he owed after deciding to buy a Swiss chalet. (We’ve all been there, amiright?)
Unfortunately Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex is reportedly proving similarly princely when it comes to money, and it has been reported he has eaten through his estimated $20 million inheritance since moving to the US.
Yes, even with Netflix and co. having, back in the good ol’ days, formed an orderly queue outside his and wife Meghan’s front door to chuck fistfuls of cash at them.
That’s reportedly one of the reasons why the couple, stuck in career doldrums and vibe-wise the NFTs of HRH-dom, are now “wildly unhappy”.
That’s according to the reporting of Dan Wakeford, the former editor of People and Us Weekly magazines and who is no new player on the Sussex stage. In 2019, he oversaw the bombshell People issue when five of Meghan’s friends blew up royal protocol to go on the offensive and again later at Us Weekly when Sussex staffers went on the record.
Now writing the Celebrity Intelligence newsletter, Wakeford has published a lengthy piece, based on conversations with five sources in the Sussexes’ inner circle, offering a glimpse inside Camp Montecito.
Unfortunately, a certain prince is reportedly now learning the very hard way about this thing called ‘money’. You need it. And you really need a lot of it if you have multiple mortgages, a $4 million annual security bill and have done all the paid-for TV shows you can mithering about how beastly the royal family was to you.
The Sussexes, according to Wakeford, have reportedly had to “cut back”, slashing their staff from 16 full-time employees to five.
Per Wakeford, “Meghan has a sense of how careful they need to be …. Harry – raised in a world where everything was provided – reportedly lacks basic awareness of what things cost.”
And in a strange way, I nearly feel sorry for Harry. Fundamentally he was born in captivity with a spoon in his mouth so solid silver it would have taken two footmen to lift it.
For the first 35 years of his life he never, ever had to think about paying a gas bill or when the bins went out. His every pair of socks, tea bag, scotch egg and round at Boujis were paid for by either his Pa or his Granny. Money, like voting, must have been a largely alien concept for the duke, something the people waving on the other side of rope lines had to trouble themselves with.
No wonder their hands were so rough.
However, Harry has allegedly gotten a crash course in why cash is king; in fact since he and Meghan broke free of their palace shackles, he has learnt the hard way that love don’t cost a thing but freedom certainly does.
For a while there, the Sussexes were very good at getting the stuff, though not quite as much as has been previously reported according to Wakeford who reports that all the big flashy numbers associated with their major deals were far off.
He writes that their Netflix deal was worth $83 million ($USD60 million) and not the $138 million ($USD100 million) that was widely reported. Likewise, their Spotify contract saw them reportedly paid $6.9 million ($USD5 million) and not the $27.7 million ($USD20 million) it would have been worth if it had gone the distance.
Harry’s chartbusting Spare came with a $27 million advance.
However there are two big flashing neon issues: No one is interested in paying them gobs of money to have a strop about Crown Inc and list all the indignities of Prince William being served more fish fingers than him and secondly, allegedly, that the duke and duchess are eating through what they have earned at a rate of American Cup-winning knots.
Per Wakeford, the issue lies in their expenses, reporting the duke and duchess have multiple mortgages on their $19.4 million Montecito mansion while a source says they have to find $4.1 million a year just for their security.
Then there is Harry’s number one pastime, waging legal war on the UK press. If only he had gotten into Runescape or Warhammer or triathlon like most men his 40s. Or if only he had taken up a cheaper hobby like collecting Fabergé eggs or breeding albino ocelots.
Since 2018, Harry has launched at least six legal actions, including against News Group Newspapers (NGN is owned by the same parent company as News Corp Australia, publisher of this masthead), the Mirror Group Newspapers, the Daily Mail’s parent company and the UK Home Office.
While Harry has won or settled many of these the Mail case is ongoing and should he lose he along with his co-claimants could be liable for the estimated $71 million in costs.
According to Wakeford’s reporting, this spate of court stoushes, along with the Sussexes’ house have, “substantially absorbed” the estimated $37 million the duke was left by his mother and the Queen Mother.
“The inheritance has largely been spent on the house and the legal trials,” one source told Wakeford.
A source in their orbit told Wakeford, “They are wildly unhappy”.
This grim view of the situation chimes with a report from Alison Boshoff over the weekend in the Daily Mail. A source told Boshoff: “They have truly lost the plot. I hear she’s spiralling badly because she knows nothing is working. The whole thing about her [As Ever] stuff selling out isn’t true any more. I don’t think either of them are happy.”
According to the Mail, “the couple’s problems are worse than many suspect because of Meghan and Harry’s unfortunate habit of falling out with the very people who could help them make a go of things financially.”
“Five years, roughly. That’s the window before their lifestyle looks a lot different,” a source told Wakeford.
Not that Harry might mind. According to the piece, the duke “does not want the life he has right now” and “would be content to downsize, move somewhere like Montana [and] live modestly”.
That’s an assessment shared by The Royalist and The Daily Beast’s Tom Sykes, who said during a recent YouTube appearance, “I have been told that he is not remotely enamoured with the prospect of spending the rest of his life in California, and that he certainly does not want things to continue as they are.”
But what about Meghan? Would the duchess be open to trading their taupe, cashmered, Cali life for the spending then next few decades bumping along Badlands dirt roads to get to Costco and never once seeing a bar of 5G?
Of course not. (And I know what I’d prefer no matter how on-trend plaid is.)
Harry might daydream about wide open spaces and never having to schmooze Hollywood execs over mahi mahi starters to keep the lights on, but Meghan “would never allow” the simpler life he fancies, Wakeford reports.
While the duke might be mooning over ranch listings and daydreaming about a life requiring the regular acquisition of rugged hats, the duchess is at least working on bringing in some moolah.
There is, of course, her Big World of Jam, aka As ever (lower case ‘e’ mind you). While the loosely associated TV show With Love, Meghan might have flopped like a starter souffle, a Netflix insider told Wakeford that she earned a “nice payday” and the streamer, having partnered with her on As ever, reportedly gave her the inventory for free. Reports vary as to how much stock the company is moving. (Though reviewers are generally impressed with her spreads and vino.)
Other career options: The former actress is reportedly “thinking” about a return to the screen. (Last year she filmed a small cameo for the upcoming movie Close Personal Friends.)
There is also fashion. Wakeford says that the Duchess of Sussex had “conversations” with J. Crew but a source said, “they wouldn’t pay her enough.” Last month while in Australia, Meghan announced her relationship with an AI fashion app that sees her earn a cut from posting outfits she wears.
But let’s finish on an oooh, ahhhh, nice bit. One thing is reportedly working for the Sussexes who, later this month, will celebrate eight years of marriage: They are still “very hot for each other,” a source told Wakeford. Their relationship: As solid as the Buckingham Palace foundations.
Long may the Sussex sizzle reign.
Daniela Elser is an editor and commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with Australia’s leading media titles.