What’s Next for Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan’s Massive Netflix Deal?

Back in 2020, when Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan transitioned away from royal duties—and inked, among other deals, a reported $100 million, five-year deal with Netflix—they turned to storytelling as their vehicle for impact.

To the Sussexes, partnering with the streaming service was an ideal collaboration, a source close to the couple shares with Harper’s Bazaar. It allowed them creative freedom to generate content that aligned with their values, from mental health initiatives to social transformation.

The deal has produced five major projects in five years, including the couple’s explosive docuseries Harry & Meghan, which became the biggest debut for a Netflix documentary upon its release and is still the company’s second most popular documentary series. Then came the docuseries Live to Lead, followed by Heart of Invictus, tied to the 2020 Invictus Games. And most recently, Netflix produced Harry’s Polo and Meghan’s With Love, Meghan. The latter show cracked Netflix’s Global Top 10 in 47 countries.

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Unlike other projects the Sussexes have undertaken—like their reported $20 million deal with Spotify, which ended in 2023—the Netflix deal seems to have staying power. Proof? With Love, Meghan has already been renewed for a second season, and episodes will debut later this year. Beyond that, Netflix is a partner in Meghan’s lifestyle brand As Ever, hinting that the company’s relationship with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Netflix has been an incredibly collaborative partner from the outset, the source close to the Sussexes shares with Bazaar. The company’s consumer products and experiences group—created to take shows from the platform off the screen to deepen fandom—features product collections inspired by series like Bridgerton, Squid Game, and Stranger Things. As Ever’s first product drop—released last month and featuring an eight-product lineup—sold out in just 45 minutes.

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This was a “big milestone,” Meghan said in the May 6 episode of her Lemonada Media podcast Confessions of a Female Founder. “Netflix coming on as my business partner is huge,” the duchess said. “Just having a global powerhouse that believed in me, and the site selling out in the first 45 minutes of launch—everything, every single piece that we had been working on. That told me that customers—people—believed in me and this vision. That’s all you really want as a founder. That becomes your proof point that those late nights and the midnight musings are worth it.”

Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos told Variety in March that the Sussexes have been “overly dismissed,” and said specifically that Meghan “is underestimated in terms of her influence on culture,” adding, succinctly, that “People are fascinated with Meghan Markle.” None of this sounds like a business relationship that is imminently ending.

Andrew Morton, royal biographer and author of 1992’s Diana: Her True Story tells Bazaar that Harry and Meghan are closely tied to Sarandos, mentioning that the couple could even follow in Sarandos’s footsteps as far as appearing on Apple TV+’s celebrity cameo-packed show The Studio in a forthcoming season.

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Netflix wants success, he says, adding that “Netflix would not have invested both monetary capital and social capital in Meghan’s lifestyle brand if they didn’t think it was going to be a winner.” Of the Duchess of Sussex, “you can see the direction she’s going, and it’s not a foolish direction,” Morton says. “It’s quite a clever direction.”

Morton adds of Meghan: “You see, you can get mesmerized by the wall of criticism that she gets, but ultimately it’s down to viewing figures.” While Harry’s efforts have “been worthy but not really box office,” Meghan’s contributions have made headlines “because people chip into it and have a view” of the content she’s creating—and no matter their opinion of her, “they watch it.”

Meghan’s efforts “seem to have a lot more components in it, and it’s got more legs,” Morton continues, adding that this next year “is a critical year” as the “test for Harry and for Meghan is to make programs which are independent of their previous royal lives and are just encompassed by what they’re doing now.”

Speaking of royals—of which Morton is an expert by this point—he notes that Harry and Meghan aren’t “the first royals to try to make TV shows. Prince Edward was the first one, and he vowed that he wouldn’t be making programs about the royals. And guess what happened? The programs he made were such duds that what he did was end up making programs about the royals.”

“And so, for me, [Harry and Meghan] making the jump from selling their royalness to actually making legitimate, non-royal programs which will get an audience—and that’s what, in fairness to Meghan, that’s what she’s trying to do,” Morton says. “They’re at the stage now where they’ve got to have standalone projects which are popular, which get a viewership, but are non-royal.”

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For Rachel Bowie, royals expert for PureWow.com and former co-host of the popular Royally Obsessed podcast, “all of this together is a sign that, yes, the deal the Sussexes have with the TV streamer will be renewed,” she tells Bazaar.

For Bowie, highlights of the partnership “have been anytime Harry and Meghan have appeared in front of the camera,” but what has “been most disappointing is the projects that feel on brand, like Harry’s Polo series, but miss the mark—I tried to watch it, but it lacked a true conflict and felt a bit boring.” She concedes that “Perhaps that’s one that would have fared better with more juicy details about the royals’ relationship with the sport throughout time”—though Harry’s decision not to do so may indicate, to Morton’s point, that Harry and Meghan are firmly going the non-royal route.

The Sussexes “seem like a worthwhile investment for the streamer,” Bowie says. “I think we’re in the beginning stages of seeing what Meghan, but also Harry, are capable of creating.” And for the couple, this all means “a platform and some editorial control.”

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A source close to the couple, while not explicitly confirming a future for the Sussexes and the streaming service, says that both parties have an “unwavering commitment to content that moves people.” The partnership, they add, has expanded into a comprehensive collaboration representing a strategic, long-term investment.

“Several exciting developments are still under wraps, but all will be revealed later this year,” the source says.