The CEO of Spotify implied that Meghan Markle’s “Archetypes” podcast was canceled after just one season because it didn’t meet their audiences’ standards.
“We thought new innovation was needed to happen here,” Daniel Ek recently told the BBC, when asked why the streaming giant cut ties with Markle and her husband, Prince Harry, in June.
“We thought we can come in and offer a great experience that both makes consumers very happy and allows new creators new avenues.”
While Ek explained that some aspects of the Duchess of Sussex’s show worked, he suggested that it was lacking.
“And the truth of the matter is, some of it has worked, some of it hasn’t,” he explained. “We’re learning from those and we are moving on.”
He also sent the Sussexs well wishes if they continue their projects somewhere else.
“We wish all of the ones we didn’t renew with the best of success they can have going forward,” he said.
Sources close to production previously told Page Six that Spotify booted Markle’s podcast from their lineup because the “Suits” alum failed to produce enough episodes to warrant the staggering $20 million deal.
Markle had released just 12 episodes over the course of two and a half years before the show was canned.
Both Spotify and Archewell said in a joint statement that they “mutually agreed to part ways and are proud of the series we made together.”
However, some Spotify employees labeled Markle, 42, and Harry, 39, as “lazy” and “grifters.”
“Spotify wants to focus on people who drive strong audiences, like Alex Cooper, Dax Shepard and Emma Chamberlain. There are a lot of great creators who are very eager,” an inside source claimed at the time.
“Meghan and Harry are the outlier on all of this, I think they have come off as being lazy and difficult.”
While Markle would often allegedly “ask for changes late in the editing process,” Harry failed to present a podcast concept of his own and even left execs puzzled when he allegedly pitched interviewing Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump and Mark Zuckerberg about their childhood traumas.
However, Markle reportedly plans on continuing to make content for the podcast under a different streaming service.
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“Meghan is continuing to develop more content for the Archetypes audience on another platform,” an Archewell Productions spokeswoman told The Wall Street Journal.
Markle and Harry, who signed the massive deal with Spotify in 2020, are not being paid anything close to the full amount they were promised – despite “Archetypes” launching at the top of the charts last year.
Markle had a stellar lineup of interviews on the first and only season of her Spotify show, having interviewed stars like Serena Williams, Mindy Kaling, Paris Hilton, Mariah Carey, Trevor Noah and Andy Cohen.
She repeatedly reached out to Taylor Swift for an interview but was rejected.
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