Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex visit the Canada House in London. Photo / AP
Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex visit the Canada House in London. Photo / AP
OPINION:
All families have dirty secrets and I've always thought that the Buckingham Palace gift shop just might be one of the Queen's biggest. There, tucked away beside the publicly accessible Queen's Gallery, tourists can spend their cash on everything from tacky crystal replicas of pieces of royal jewellery to the Princess Beatrice wedding china that no one asked for.
And therein lies one of the inherent tensions of the royal family in the 21st century: They are somehow meant to be above filthy money yet need buckets of the stuff to keep the footmen paid and the dorgis fed.
(That said, the money from the gift shop goes to the Royal Collection Trust — a registered charity and is in charge of palace upkeep.)
Money and royalty have traditionally been deeply uncomfortable bedfellows, but like many fronts, Harry and Meghan Duke and Duchess of Sussex are challenging the status quo.
Overnight the Santa Barbara-based duo announced they had signed a deal to produce and host podcasts "celebrating kindness and compassion" and which "build community through shared experience, narratives and values" for streaming giant Spotify.
According to the Mirror's royal editor Russell Myers, the contract is worth an eye watering £30 million ($57m).
Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex arrive at the annual Endeavour Fund Awards in London. Photo / AP
This, of course, is in addition to the mega Netflix deal they inked back in September which, estimates suggest, could see the couple rake in $150 million in the coming years.
Assuming all these figures are correct, that would mean that the Sussexes have managed to pick up $207 million in future earnings in the scant nine months since they officially quit as working members of the royal family.
(Makes the Queen's attempts to earn a bit of coin by schilling Buckingham Place-brand gin seem positively amateurish by comparison.)
And all this money coming Harry and Meghan's way in the years to come could very well post a problem both for the couple and the palace. A big one.
See, money and a difference of opinions of how the Sussexes should fund their life lay at the very crux of how Megxit came to pass.
On January 8 this year when the duke and duchess first unveiled their sensational plans to re-jig their roles, they proposed that they would both continue to represent the Queen though part-time while also being able to take on paying work. The idea of mashing together part-royaldom and the pursuit of the almighty pound is alleged to have been too uncomfortable a proposition for Her Majesty.
Days later, the Queen, Prince Charles, Prince William and Prince Harry met for the 'Sandringham Summit' to hammer out a solution. Authors Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand quote a source familiar with the negotiations in their biography Finding Freedom as saying: "The biggest row was over money, because it always is."
In the wake of the summit, it was announced that Harry and Meghan had chosen to quit and make their own way in the world. Six months after their official exit, they answered the question of how they planned to fund this new independent life, including their multimillion-dollar bill for their security, when their Netflix arrangement was first revealed.
But there is an astronomical difference between needing to pocket enough dosh to remain financially independent and the $207 million that is reportedly coming their way. (In August, the Daily Mail estimated that their costs, from the mortgage for their luxe Montecito mansion to staffers to security would be $6 million annually.)
Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, with their son Archie, in St George's Hall at Windsor Castle. Photo / AP
For two people so committed to remaking the world into a happier, better place this just seems like an obscene amount of money to accrue in the process.
While there is every chance that they will plough all of profits, sans living expenses, back into Archewell - their soon to launch charitable entity - or other philanthropic ventures all of this money being associated with the Sussexes is still deeply problematic from the palace's perspective.
When the Queen allegedly forced Harry to choose between life in the family or out of it during the Sandringham Summit, she was reportedly motivated by a fear of anyone ever being able to suggest that someone was monetising their royal position.
With this week's Spotify announcement, that particular worry seems to be a step closer to becoming a reality.
Let's be real: Just Harry and Meghan, two wealthy, kind-hearted do-gooders, are not getting eight figure contracts but Harry and Meghan Duke and Duchess of Sussex can easily pull in that sort of serious coin. It is not their enthusiasm or world-changing ideas that are going to see them earn the big bucks but the platform and global fame that they bring with him because of their royal identity.
Their hearts and heads might be firmly in the right place but that does not change the fact that their access and clout in the entertainment and business worlds rests largely on their surname and royal imprimatur.
At some stage in the first few months of 2021, the 12-month review period that the Queen, Charles, William and Harry agreed to during the Sandringham Summit will be up.
The Queen talks to Prince William and Kate, Duchess of Cambridge in the quadrangle at Windsor Castle. Photo / AP
With Harry and Meghan $207 million richer (on paper anyway) than they were at the same time last year, the looming question is, will the Queen feel she needs to take action to further distance the Crown from all this new cashola?
That is, will she make some sort of change to Harry and Meghan's titles? Under the terms of the Megxit divorce deal struck in January, the couple retained their official styling as His/Her Royal Highness but agreed not to use them. Could there be some change on this front?
Keep in mind there is precedent for this - both Diana, Princess of Wales and Sarah, Duchess of York were stripped over their HRHs after their divorces and once they were out of the royal fold.
Harry's Sussex dukedom can only be rescinded by parliament, which would be a highly, highly unlikely turn of events, however, he and Meghan do not have to use it. Pressure could always be exerted on them to no longer use these titles.
To be fair, Harry is not the only one of the Queen's grandchildren whose money-making moves has created a regal headache or seven. Earlier this year, Peter Phillips, Princess Anne's son, hit the headlines after starring in a series of Chinese milk ads that played on his royal association.
In November this year, an advertisement for a coronavirus "passport" app which featured Princess Anne's daughter Zara Tindall and her husband was reported to a UK medical regulator.
Meanwhile, in 2019 it was revealed that both Peter and Zara had been paid hundreds of thousands of pounds by a Hong Kong businessman with what the Times termed "a pro-China background".
Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex visit the Canada House in London. Photo / AP
The difference however between Harry and his cousins is that he and wife Meghan were, until very recently, official representatives of the Queen, a role that Peter and Zara have never filled.
Likewise, Harry is sixth-in-line to the throne, in contrast to Peter who sits way back in the 15th spot and Zara who comes in at number 18. Basically, the further away you are from the throne, the more latitude (or blind eye) you get.
Interestingly, the Sussexes' Spotify news was not the only business deal of theirs to be revealed this week, with news breaking that Meghan had invested in a US coffee start-up but only after Oprah had conveniently spruiked the brand and its royal association on social media.
In the wake of this, The UK Telegraph reported that "the couple's business moves have raised eyebrows at Buckingham Palace".
Having been released from the constraints - and the purse strings - attached to royal life, Harry and Meghan don't seem content with simply finding a way to keep the lights on but are giving every indication that they are hungry to establish a business empire.
In 2021, will we see the Sussexes charge full steam ahead and build out a multichannel business behemoth? Perhaps the trickier question to answer is, if they did, would it tally with their promise to uphold the values of the Queen?
In some ways, Harry and Meghan are the victims of their own success. They were too popular as the spare and his wife to find their groove in the royal firmament and they are too charismatic, photogenic and ambitious now that they are out in the real world to not earn serious money.
No matter what happens at next year's review, Harry and Meghan can take comfort from the fact they've never had to launch their own booze brand or spruik branded egg cups to pay their staff.
The Sussexes have proven one thing this year: Some members of the Queen's family can hang on to their dignity and still watch the dollars roll in.
• Daniela Elser is a royal expert and writer with more than 15 years experience working with a number of Australia's leading media titles.
