Meghan Markle and Prince Harry have been married since 2018. The duke and duchess later left the family after problems with the media and Harry’s relatives caused them to step down. Ever since, the two have been trying to build up their own brand, Archewell, while living in California. But it now looks like Harry and Meghan might be creating separate brands, too, with Meghan’s newest deal appearing to separate her from her husband. According to one royal expert, that’s a “huge risk” for the duchess.
When Harry and Meghan moved to the United States, they first established their business parent company, Archewell, which would house all of the couple’s business endeavors under one roof. Since then, they’ve done things like sign a deal with Netflix and launch a podcast. However, once Meghan’s deal with Spotify was axed (the podcast does not yet have a new home), it seemed it was time for the duchess to have some sort of rebrand.
In April 2023, it was reported that Meghan had signed with WME, an agency that was brought on to help the duchess expand her business endeavors. The move came before the Spotify deal was nixed, but it looks like Meghan might need that PR team more than ever. Still, in this apparent rebrand, it appears Meghan and Harry are shifting away from each other in the professional space. Variety reported that the agency would bring “Meghan’s global enterprise” to life, and that the agency will also represent Archewell. However, it does not appear that Harry has independently signed with the agency the way his wife did.
Meghan’s decision to sign with an agency without her husband could be a “huge risk” for her brand as a whole, says one expert. “There were clear signs of a professional separation when WME announced that they were only signing Meghan Markle,” Kinsey Schofield, host of the “To Di for Daily” podcast, told Fox News. “I certainly think that Meghan has counsel in her ear telling her that she is better off without Prince Harry and the royal drama, professionally — but Meghan was a working actor before Harry. She was not a celebrity or a household name. We loved and accepted Meghan because we have loved Prince Harry since he was a little boy.”
Schofield said she thinks Meghan “takes a huge risk distancing herself from the individual that gave her the platform that she has today.”
Perhaps Harry and Meghan separating themselves professionally seems like a risk for the duchess, but it might just be so the two aren’t always expected to take on the same projects. They can do much more with the two of them doing their own thing versus if they could only do projects together.
“Then the ‘Heart of Invictus’ trailer was released, and we discovered that Prince Harry was the executive producer — without Meghan.” Harry and Meghan might be married, but that doesn’t mean they always have to do everything the same. Though it is a risk for Meghan to go out on her own, it might wind up benefitting them more financially if they do different things.