Bill Simmons, Spotify’s head of podcast innovation and monetisation, has labelled Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex “grifters” after their $20 million deal with the streaming platform ended prematurely. The couple produced only 12 episodes of Meghan’s Archetypes podcast before parting ways.
Simmons, founder of the Ringer podcast network which Spotify acquired for $196 million in 2020, made the comments on his own podcast. “I wish I had been involved in the ‘Meghan and Harry leave Spotify’ negotiation. ‘The Fucking Grifters.’ That’s the podcast we should have launched with them,” he said.
The Sussexes signed a multi-year deal with Spotify in 2020 worth an estimated $20 million. However, last week the partners issued a joint statement saying they had “mutually agreed to part ways”. Sources told the Wall Street Journal that the couple did not meet the productivity benchmark for the full payout.
Simmons had previously criticised the couple, saying in a January 2022 episode: “You live in fucking Montecito and you just sell documentaries and podcasts and nobody cares what you have to say about anything unless you talk about the royal family and you just complain about them.”
The deal was part of Spotify’s $1 billion expansion into podcasting, which also included a deal with Joe Rogan. But the company has faced investor pressure after posting a net loss of €430 million last year, leading to 200 job cuts in its podcast division.
