How Prince Harry and Meghan are copying Ryan Reynolds’ Welcome to Wrexham and Selena Gomez to build their media empire – as they hope polo and cooking will prove the route to millions of dollars
Prince Harry’s recent victory at a charity polo match in Florida, captured by an army of Netflix cameras, offered an insight into how he and Meghan Markle seek to make their millions after retreating from royal duties.
The Duke of Sussex was seen locking lips with Meghan as his team took the top prize at the Royal Salute Polo Challenge – with the action captured by a Netflix team run by Miloš Balać, showrunner on Ryan Reynolds sports doc Welcome to Wrexham.
Balać’s programme, exploring the ‘aesthetic and social’ side of polo, is one of two the Sussexes are making with the streaming giant – with Meghan creating a homelife programme set to tie in with her new lifestyle brand American Riviera Orchard.
Echoing the Duke’s choice of showrunner, the Duchess’ programme is being run by Leah Hariton, who produces Selena Gomez‘s cooking show Selena + Chef, which sees the popstar learn how to cook dishes with professional chefs.
Both programmes are being executive produced by Archewell Productions, the couple’s own creative firm, with titles yet to be announced.
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Harry and Meghan lock lips as she presents his polo team with the trophy for winning the Royal Salute Polo Challenge in Florida’s Palm Springs
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The couple were seem strolling around Grand Champions Polo Club in Florida – flanked by an army of Netflix camera operators producing a new documentary on the sport
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Nacho Figueras – a polo player and close friend of the Duke – hopes the documentary, being produced by the Sussexes’ own firm, will shine new light on the elite sport
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The Netflix series, one of five either made or under production as part of Archewell’s Netflix deal, is being filmed by the team behind Welcome To Wrexham. It charts Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney’s (left and right) purchase of the Welsh football side
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Meghan launched her American Riviera Orchard lifestyle brand on Instagram with a retro-styled video of her in a home kitchen
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Her new Netflix cooking show is being made by the same showrunner behind Selena Gomez’s hit programme Selena + Chef, which has won the popstar (pictured) merchandising deals
Gordon Ramsay surprises Selena Gomez in Selena + Chef season 4
But they point the way for how Harry and Meghan seek to make their fortune following their exit from royal life, after earlier efforts to break into the media failed to launch.
Harry impressed during the Palm Beach polo mini-tournament, played against a squad led by friend, Argentine polo player and model Nacho Figueras.
In Friday’s matches, his Harry’s Royal Salute Sentebale team beat Figueras’ squad 3-1, with the prince scoring the opening goal.
He picked up the ball at midfield – 150 yards (137 meters) from the goal – and repeatedly hammered it the rest of the way, popping it through the goalposts.
He also stopped his friend from a possible breakaway, though he let out a loud yelp of frustration when he missed a pass to a teammate that could have led to a goal.
About 300 spectators attended the matches, part of a fundraising weekend that will raise $1 million for Sentebale, a charity Harry co-founded to support children and young adults in southern Africa countries.
Organisers say the event has raised $15million for the charity since 2006.
And as the Duke, Duchess and polo star strolled around the Grand Champions Polo Club, they were tailed by crews from Boardwalk Pictures, who previously filmed Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney for Disney+ documentary Welcome to Wrexham.
Its first series won five Emmys earlier this year, including Outstanding Unstructured Reality Program.
A combination of the actors’ star power and the documentary itself has made the small Welsh football side one of the most famous football teams in the world.
The club is the third-oldest professional football side in existence – but had been languishing in obscurity when it was purchased by the Hollywood duo.
Now its club shirts sell out almost instantly. Harry will be hoping the Wrexham effect rubs off on the ‘sport of kings’ – of which his father, King Charles III, was a keen player in his youth.
Between Miloš Balać’s filmmaking chops and the huge platform Netflix offers, it is hoped Harry’s documentary will give polo a similar boost – comparable to that of Formula 1 after high-octane series Drive to Survive won the motorsport new fans.
The success of the F1 series – which revisits the previous year’s season with behind-the-scenes insight and interviews from drivers and team bosses – prompted a flood of other sporting dramas on Netflix and other streaming platforms.
Netflix has since produced series on the Tour de France, stock car racing series Nascar, golf’s PGA Tour and the ATP and WTA grand slam tennis tours.
‘We have been working on this (documentary) for a long time. It was always Harry’s dream and passion to share with the world it takes to be a really competitive polo player at the highest level,’ Figueras said.
He added of the Duke’s polo skills: ‘(He is) a very good rider… a very good athlete, he has great eye-hand coordination. He’s a very good polo player.’
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Harry swings his mallet as he gets stuck into the Royal Salute Polo Challenge in Wellington, Florida on Friday
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The Duke and Duchess’ every move was captured by a Netflix crew for an upcoming documentary they are producing on the sport
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Meghan was joined at the event by close friend and tennis legend Serena Williams (pictured)
Harry’s friend and polo player Nacho Figueras hopes the Netflix show will boost polo’s profile as Drive To Survive (pictured) has done for Formula One
But the Sussexes are facing a popularity crisis compared with the rest of the Royal Family – and are only viewed more favourably than the Duke of York
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Suggestions have been made that the Duke’s recent appearances have been carefully stage managed – often happening unannounced or behind closed doors (such as at the Diana Awards, pictured, last month)
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Other recent appearances, such as at the Sport Gives Back Awards (above), have been pre-recorded
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The showrunner on Meghan’s new lifestyle show worked on Selena Gomez’s Selena + Chef (available in the UK on Apple TV+)
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Its director, meanwhile, is known for his work on Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown show (pictured)
A statement published on the Archewell website this week said the polo programme will ‘pull the curtain back on the grit and passion of the sport, capturing players and all it takes to compete at the highest level’.
Harry is also likely staking hopes on the programme improving his approval ratings with the public.
Polling by Ipsos in February suggested just over one in four Brits have a positive impression of the Duke – 28 per cent – while just 23 per cent take a positive view on Meghan.
They are the two least popular royals save for Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, who has an eleven per cent approval rating; William and Catherine have approval ratings of 60 and 61 per cent respectively.
Reports have also suggested the Duke of Sussex’s public appearances are being stage-managed to avoid any slip-ups or ‘gotcha’ moments.
His only recent appearances have been pre-recorded or carefully teased, with images and videos selectively edited before being released to the public.
Former BBC royal correspondent Michael Cole recently told MailOnline: ‘It is obvious that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are well aware of the disapproval, hostility and contempt they have incurred among many people by their words and actions since they left Britain and they clearly do not wish take any risks of a confrontation they cannot control – let alone stop.’
But Harry’s passion for polo isn’t the only target of the Sussexes’ media ambitions – with Meghan set to front her own cooking and lifestyle programme with the help of some of the entertainment industry’s best culinary experts.
Her as-yet-unnamed show boasts Leah Hariton, the boss of Selena + Chef, as well as Michael Steed, who worked on David Letterman’s My Next Guest Needs No Introduction and Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown.
Selena’s show boasted huge US cooking guest stars in its early seasons before expanding to bring in the likes of Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsay and Priya Krishna as its profile grew.
And Gomez now boasts a tie-in with cookware firms Our Place, sharing pictures of the Instagram-friendly pots and pans with her 429million followers on the picture-sharing social network.
It is almost inevitable that Meghan will seek to link her as-yet-untitled programme into new lifestyle brand American Riviera Orchard (ARO), which she launched earlier this year with a video of her mixing ingredients in a retro-styled home kitchen.
Trademark applications in the US have indicated Meghan will sell trendy cookware as well as fashionable food products such as fruit butters and spreads made with legumes under the ARO brand, as well as her own cookbooks.
Experts have claimed the merchandise will generate six-figure sales within weeks of being launched – despite struggling to win over fans in her native US.
Harry and Meghan’s Netflix deal, worth a reported $100 million, has sparked five shows, including the new polo and lifestyle programmes.
The three programmes already available to stream include Heart of Invictus, following athletes competing in the veterans’ sporting event founded by Harry and Live to Lead, a documentary series on world leaders.
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A scene from Harry & Meghan on Netflix. The show holds the record for the most viewing time of any Netflix documentary in its first week
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Meghan’s new Netflix show will focus on home life, exploring cooking and gardening (pictured: Harry and Meghan during a 2020 visit to an LA pre-school)
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The couple have also optioned Carley Fortune’s romantic novel Meet Me At The Lake for a film adaptation
Fortune’s (pictured) novel is said to be a favourite of Harry and Meghan’s. One of its characters loses a parent in a car accident
The other is Harry & Meghan, the insight into the couple’s life away from royal circles, which holds the record for the most viewing time of any Netflix documentary in its debut week, at 81.55 million hours.
The couple also paid £3million for the film rights to Carley Fortune’s novel Meet Me At The Lake, which has been described as being ‘right up their alley‘.
It features a character whose parent dies in a car crash, and was described by one reviewer as ‘a perfect summery blend of sexy romance and second chances’.
Meghan, of course, is likely to still pick up residuals from her time on legal procedural drama Suits, the show for which she was best known before she began seeing Harry in the summer of 2016.
The show has enjoyed a recent boost on streaming platforms – likely due to a combination of Meghan’s star power and its digestible, bingeable nature.
Meghan plays one of a number of high-flying lawyers at a glamorous legal firm in what one critic described as ‘textbook competency porn, in which beautiful people scheme well and deliver under pressure’.
Further to this, Harry and Meghan signed a $25million deal with Spotify in 2020 to produce podcasts for the platform as it made a concentrated push into other forms of audio streaming outside of music.
But that deal was prematurely canned by mutual agreement in June last year after Meghan’s Archetypes podcast produced just 12 episodes in its first series.
The show, which saw the Duchess interview high-profile women like Serena Williams and Mariah Carey about how society views women. But it was the only project to come out of the deal in two and a half years.
And aside from the Netflix millions and more income that could come from cookware and recipe books, Harry is thought to have made millions from the sales of tell-all memoir Spare, which was released in January 2023.
Harry is believed to have secured a £16million advance as part of a £32million four-book deal, the first of which has widened the rift between the Duke and his family.
Fellow author Richard Osman – who launched a whole new career as a novelist with his Thursday Murder Club series – estimated this month that the Duke has made some £22million from the controversial book.
‘The book that Harry wrote, it’s impossible to overestimate how much money that has made,’ he said on his The Rest Is Entertainment podcast.
‘I think – and his book has not come out in paperback yet – so this book is purely hardback – I reckon he’s made $26, $27million.
‘So he’s earned out an advance of $20million on the hardback of his first book alone.
‘Forget rights to other things and audiobooks and what have you. He has earned that out already.
‘When the paperback comes out, it’s just money rolling into the Sussexes.’
Harry’s controversial autobiography Spare is likely to have made the Duke millions, according to napkin maths by novelist and TV producer Richard Osman
The book features contentious claims about other members of the Royal Family and is thought to have widened the rift between Harry and his relatives
William, Harry and their father Prince (now King) Charles in 2014. The trio are rarely seen together now
Spare was the fastest-selling non-fiction book in the UK since records began in 1998, according to Nielsen BookData, despite extracts being leaked online.
Harry used the tell-all book to make various claims about his family including that William called Meghan ‘difficult’, ‘rude’ and ‘abrasive’, and that Charles refused to allow Meghan to join Harry in Scotland as the late Queen was dying.
Data obtained by The Bookseller in January found that Spare sold more than 700,000 copies in Britain last year, making it the country’s bestselling book of 2023.
Elsewhere in the top five books from last year were two entries from Osman – The Last Devil to Die and The Bullet That Missed.
Harry has also been double-nominated at the British Book Awards for Spare.
The ghost-written autobiography has been given nods in the categories of narration audiobook non-fiction, which the Duke provided, and non-fiction: narrative. The ceremony takes place on May 13 in London.
