Royal biographer Tom Bower shared his opinion with Dan Wootton on whether Prince Harry and Meghan Markle should step back from their deal with Netflix and Harry’s upcoming memoir.
However, the royal expert concluded the Duke and Duchess of Sussex had no choice as they “needed the money more than ever”.
Dan asked: “Do you think Harry and Meghan are fast learning what they signed away when they took this Netflix big [money] and I would say they signed away their credibility and their dignity?”
“Well, that’s that’s our view but it’s not theirs,” he claimed. “They need the money and they need it now more than ever because they’ve got no other source of income. So I think they’re just stuck with the devil now. They’re tied to Netflix, they’re tied to that book, and all the criticism they’re going to take means nothing because that’s the only way they can earn their money.”
Tom continued: “The only way I can conceive of Harry getting out of it now is if Charles would bail him out. Somehow he’d have to pay off Netflix he’d have to pay off [Penguin] Random House publishers it will cost millions of dollars or pounds but [Charles] might give that to him in return for a signed agreement, never to knock the Royal Family again.”
He added: “That’s the only thing I can imagine would actually end this confrontation. But I can’t see Meghan signing that deal. Meghan has got no interest whatsoever in giving away being silent. She wants to battle she wants to rubbish the Royal Family and go on to bigger things.”
Dan interjected: “They have signed this deal with the Hollywood devil in this case, Netflix and Netflix is now demanding its pound of flesh.
“They’re not happy with this woke children’s TV series that Meghan wanted her to do and some sort of twee documentary that Harry was planning about the Invictus Games. They want the dirt on the royal family, don’t they, Tom?”
The royal biography replied: “Well, I think they’ve got the dirt. I mean, they’ve been filming now for more than a year and I’m sure that everything that Harry spewed out to the ghostwriter for the book, he gave Netflix to plus a lot more.
“And so they’ve got it in the can so to speak the only question now is whether they’re prepared to dump in. I don’t see why they should it’s their investment, and it’ll come brilliantly at the end of The Crown. Netflix is in battle with all the other streaming services they want to now push their own product. They don’t care, rightly so, if the Sussexes suddenly decide that they’re cowards, and I don’t think Meghan wants to pull out.”
