Royal author Tom Bower has claimed the Duchess of Sussex was surprised her husband “had very little money” when they first started dating.
Speaking to GB News earlier this month, Daily Mail reported Bower said Meghan had many misconceptions about the Royal family including how much disposable income Harry had access to before going on to describe the former Suits actress as “money-obsessed”.
Speaking to Royal expert Dan Wootton on the show, Bower said, “Her great surprise and disappointment was that Prince Harry had very little money.
“She had imagined he would be worth hundreds of millions, if not billions, and she is having to make up for it now.”
Harry and Meghan announced their engagement in 2017. Photo / Getty Images
Bower – who wrote the bestselling “explosive tell-all” book, Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the War Between the Windsors – claimed that the Californian-based royals would not be able to afford their current lifestyle if they were still working royals.
Noting that even now, with multiple media deals on the table, the couple’s preference of travelling via Cadillacs and private jets is difficult to maintain and Meghan has to “scrounge for those sorts of things”.
Daily Mail reported the couple’s spending was funded by King Charles’ Duchy of Cornwall estate before they resigned as working royals in 2020.
After their decision to leave, Charles reportedly paid the Duke of Sussex GBP£2.3million (NZD$4.5m) a year on average. It is not known if he still pays his youngest son the large sum each year.
It comes after Harry revealed in the couple’s explosive 2021 Oprah interview that, once they resigned as working royals, he was forced to rely on his inheritance.
He told the popular American talk show host, “I’ve got what my mum left me,” adding, “Without that, we wouldn’t have been able to do this.”
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's home in Montecito, California. Picture from the sale listing in 2015. Photo / Supplied
While it’s unknown exactly how much inheritance the prince was left when his mother died in 1997 following a tragic car accident, Daily Mail has reported it was around £20 million ($39m).
In addition to the inheritance left by his mother, the UK news outlet claimed the youngest son of Charles was left almost £7million ($15m) by his great-grandmother, the Queen mother, when she passed away in 2002.
Meghan was reportedly worth almost £4million ($8m) after she rose to fame on the popular show Suits and was paid nearly USD$50,000 ($81,000) per episode.
The couple’s current stream of income includes a Netflix deal worth $172 million and a $58 million Spotify deal.
