Curious about Prince Harry and how he has made a good living since he left the royal family?
Prince Henry Charles Albert David, better known as Prince Harry, is the younger son of King Charles III and the late Princess Diana. However, he is carving his own identity in the world as a non-working royal. Hence, the net worth of Prince Harry is not as high as that of his father or his brother — Prince William, Prince of Wales, who is the heir to the British throne.
Despite not being part of the rich club of the senior royals, Prince Harry — the grandson of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip — and his wife, Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, are loved by many and are among the most famous royal couples.
Unlike working royals whose wealth primarily comes from the vast landholdings under their command, Prince Harry and Meghan earn their money independently to pay for their security and raise their children — son Archie Mountbatten-Windsor and daughter Lilibet Mountbatten-Windsor.
On 9 January 2020, Prince Harry and Meghan officially announced that they wanted to stop being working members of the royal family.
“After many months of reflection and internal discussions, we have chosen to make a transition this year in starting to carve out a progressive new role within this institution. We intend to step back as ‘senior’ members of the Royal Family and work to become financially independent, while continuing to fully support Her Majesty The Queen,” the Duke and Duchess of Sussex said in a statement.
A post shared by The Duke and Duchess of Sussex (@sussexroyal)
Following the announcement, Queen Elizabeth II issued a statement on 13 January, saying that the family was supportive of the couple’s decision.
“My family and I are entirely supportive of Harry and Meghan’s desire to create a new life as a young family,” she said, adding, “Although we would have preferred them to remain full-time working Members of the Royal Family, we respect and understand their wish to live a more independent life as a family while remaining a valued part of my family.”
She ended her statement, saying, “These are complex matters for my family to resolve, and there is some more work to be done, but I have asked for final decisions to be reached in the coming days.”
A year later on 19 February, Buckingham Palace announced that the couple had confirmed to Queen Elizabeth II of their decision to permanently cease to be working royals.
“Following conversations with The Duke, The Queen has written confirming that in stepping away from the work of The Royal Family it is not possible to continue with the responsibilities and duties that come with a life of public service. The honorary military appointments and Royal patronages held by The Duke and Duchess will therefore be returned to Her Majesty, before being redistributed among working members of The Royal Family,” read a statement issued by the palace.
The couple founded a charity named Archewell in early 2020 and later added Archewell Audio and Archewell Productions.
According to a January 2022 Forbes report, 11 companies and a trust are under the Archewell umbrella. All of the entities are located in Delaware, which, Forbes noted, is “a renowned tax haven.”
“The companies have, so far, been used to hold trademarks, IP and develop work through,” the report said.
Like many other royals, Prince Harry once served in the military. He qualified as an Apache helicopter pilot for the Army Air Corps in 2013, after over three years of training and a second tour of Afghanistan as a soldier. According to a 2011 Forbes report, he earned a salary between USD 50,000 and USD 53,000 for his service. However, he quit his job early in 2014.
The same year, he founded the Invictus Games — a multi-sports event for serving and veteran soldiers who are wounded, injured or sick. Invictus Games has since become one of the biggest sporting events of its kind.
As long as he was a working royal, most of his official expenses were covered by the Duchy of Cornwall.
The massive real-estate duchy was then under Prince Charles, as he was at the time the heir to the throne. When Queen Elizabeth II died and her son became King Charles III, the duchy, which is worth over a billion dollars, became part of the next heir to the throne. As such, it is now a major contributor to Prince William’s net worth.
The remaining, much smaller part of his official expenses, was covered by the Sovereign Grant, which is given by the government to the reigning monarch in return for the profits of the Crown Estate, whose net worth, according to a 2021 Forbes report, is around USD 20 billion.
Since he is no longer a working royal, Prince Harry is not entitled to the money that covers royal duties.
Following his departure from the royal family, Prince Harry has taken residence in the US with Meghan. They have since established their base in the country and are building their portfolio with deals with Netflix and Spotify.
While they attend certain events, whether or not they get paid for any private ones remains unknown.
For instance, although it is unclear if they received payment for appearing as speakers at an exclusive JP Morgan event soon after stepping down as royals, The Mirror reported that as per “public relations experts” the couple could have earned anywhere between USD 480,000 and USD 900,000.
Part of Prince Harry’s net worth will include a house worth USD 14.65 million in Santa Barbara County, California, the US, which he bought in June 2020 with Meghan.
Records obtained by the Los Angeles Times connected the property to “limited liability companies previously created by the Duchess of Sussex.” The report also said that the property was sold to the royals by another limited liability company connected to Russian investor Sergey Grishin.
Reportedly located in the Montecito area of the county, between Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean, the area is known for celebrity houses, owned by the likes of Winfrey, Gwyneth Paltrow and Ariana Grande.
According to The Irish Times, the property measures around 30,000 square metres. The main house alone measures around 1,350 square metres and has nine bedrooms.
The estate was created in 2003. Hand-cut, locally sourced stone was used in its construction. While its entry is reportedly covered with vines, its amenities include a tennis court, a jungle gym, a spa, a teahouse and a swimming pool.
It was initially reported that King Charles III used his income to help the couple financially regarding the purchase of the property, but the Daily Mail cited a source confirming that the couple have said they bought it “without any help from his [Prince Harry’s] family.”
In April 2022, Prince Harry told Hoda Kotb, host of NBC’s TODAY show, how he felt living in the house in America.
“We’ve been welcomed with open arms,” he told Hoda, adding that he and his family have “got such a great community up in Santa Barbara.”
He further said that at times he feels “massively at peace.”
Soon after the news of their purchase of the California property, the spokesperson of the Duke and Duchess told PEOPLE that the Prince “fully covered” the cost of around USD 3 million for renovation to the Frogmore Cottage — their UK residence at the time. In other words, Prince Harry paid back every penny from the Sovereign Grant that was used for the renovation.
In September 2020, Prince Harry and Meghan signed a multi-year deal worth around USD 100 million with streaming giant Netflix. As part of the widely reported deal, Archewell Productions, which was founded at around the same time as the deal, will be creating original content, including movies, documentaries and other shows for the streamer.
“Our focus will be on creating content that informs but also gives hope,” the couple said in a statement following the news. “As new parents, making inspirational family programming is also important to us. … [Netflix’s] unprecedented reach will help us share impactful content that unlocks action.”
In June 2022, Hello! reported that the couple hired Liz Garbus of The Handmaid’s Tale to direct an unnamed documentary series around Prince Harry and Meghan while noting that Archewell has never confirmed the show.
Interestingly, the report observed that Garbus was supposed to be part of Archewell Productions’ first animated series — Pearl.
The animated show, which was announced with much fanfare in August 2021, was scrapped by Netflix as part of the latter’s cost-cutting initiatives in May. According to Deadline, it was executive produced by Meghan herself along with David Furnish.
Though there is no clarity around the docuseries about the pair, Page Six reported in July 2022 that Netflix plans to air it at around the same time when The Crown season 5 premieres on the platform.
The Crown, which is counted among the finest British shows or movies ever made about the royal family, will have its season 5 premiere on 9 November 2022.
There is another Netflix and Archewell documentary project in the pipeline — Heart of Invictus.
According to Radio Times, the series follows competitors, organisers and Prince Harry, as they focus on the Invictus Games The Hague 2020, which was held in 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The series will reportedly be directed by Academy Award winners Orlando Von Einsiedel and Joanna Natasegara.
Two months after signing the Netflix deal, Archewell Audio signed a multi-year podcast partnership deal with audio streaming platform Spotify worth USD 30 million. The first content they released was a holiday special in December 2020.
The just over 30-minute special featured the couple and a host of celebrity guests such as Sir Elton John, Naomi Osaka, Stacey Abrams, James Corden and Tyler Perry.
However, the pair did not produce anything through 2021, which, according to Forbes’ January report, led Spotify to bring in its own in-house team.
On 23 August 2022, Meghan hosted her first show for Spotify as part of the deal. Titled Archetypes, the show’s first guest was Serena Williams, who was speaking after announcing her retirement from tennis. Williams was joined by UC Berkeley professor Dr. Laura Cray, who is an expert on gender in the workplace. Prince Harry also dropped in for a quick “Hi.”
In an earlier trailer, Meghan described Archetypes as a show that focusses on “how we talk about women: the words that raise our girls, and how the media reflects women back to us.”
In February 2021, Prince Harry and Meghan made headlines for their controversial interview with Oprah Winfrey in which they claimed ill-treatment as well as alleged racism at the hands of unnamed members of the royal family.
In the interview, Prince Harry said that “my family literally cut me off financially” in “the first quarter of 2020.”
“I’ve got all my mom left me and without that we would not be able to do this,” Harry added.
The Duke of Sussex was referring to the fortune his mother, Princess Diana, left behind for him and Prince William when she died in a tragic car accident in France in 1997. In a will created four years before her death, Princess Diana had left the bulk of her wealth in a trust for her sons.
A 2011 Forbes report revealed that the amount left for her sons was roughly around USD 10 million each after taxes. Both Prince William and Prince Harry started receiving annual dividends from their share, amounting to around USD 450,000 per annum, when they turned 25. The full sum was received by Prince Harry when he turned 30.
In near exact figures in Pound Sterling, as given by The Telegraph in 2021, the amount originally left behind by Diana for each of her sons was around GBP 6.5 million. The money grew as it had been used as investments. By the time Prince Harry received the entire sum on his 30th birthday, the figure stood at around GBP 10 million.
Like Prince William, Prince Harry, too, inherited a share in a fund created for them as part of Queen Elizabeth’s, The Queen Mother, trust for her great-grandchildren — which was about two-thirds of her wealth.
Prince William and Prince Harry together are set to receive around USD 18 million as their share in the fund in parts till they are 40. However, Prince Harry will reportedly receive a larger share of the inheritance as compensation for not becoming the Sovereign.
Prince Harry also received a blue 12-carat sapphire-and-diamond ring, purchased by King Charles III in 1981 for Princess Diana for their wedding. However, according to Princess Diana’s former butler, Paul Burrell, he gave it away to Prince William when the latter got married to Catherine, Princess of Wales.
“Harry said to him [William]: ‘Wouldn’t it be fitting if she had mummy’s ring?’” Burrell said in the 2017 Amazon Prime documentary The Diana Story. “Then one day, that ring will be sat on the throne of England. Harry gave up his precious treasure. His one thing he kept from his mother, he gave to his brother. That’s selfless, kind, and exactly who Diana was.”
Both Prince William and Prince Harry received several other items belonging to their mother, including her iconic wedding dress, which was made of thousands of pearls and had a 7.6-metre-long train.
Though it is not clear which brother got what, according to The Telegraph report, they received 28 other dresses, designer suits, evening gowns and two diamond tiaras, among other items, connected to their mother.
When they bought their house in Santa Barbara, Meghan reportedly contributed USD 2 million in after-tax earnings from her works in films and TV shows.
According to the BBC, the Duchess of Sussex earned over USD 50,000 per episode in her most well-known show on USA Network — Suits (2011-18).
Her long list of acting credits includes 90210 (2008), CSI: Miami (2010) and Horrible Bosses (2011). Besides, she also ran a lifestyle blog and created her own fashion line for a Canadian brand, according to BBC.
(Main image: British Army/@BritishArmy/Twitter; Featured image: The Duke and Duchess of Sussex/@sussexroyal/Instagram)
Answer: Prince Harry built his net worth largely from the deals he and Meghan struck with streaming platforms such as Netflix and Spotify. There is also his share in the trust fund created by his mother, Princess Diana, and great-grandmother, Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, that have contributed to his wealth.
Answer: Like all senior members of British royals, whether working royals or not, it is not possible to peg the net worth of Prince Harry to an exact figure. However, reports suggest that his net worth could be anywhere between USD 40 million to USD 60 million. Having said that, there is no clarity if the figures take into account the Netflix and Spotify deals.
Answer: Despite the absence of an exact figure, the wealth that Prince Harry has certainly makes him one of the richest members of the British royal family. He has a massive property in Santa Barbara, California, which alone cost him USD 14.5 million.
Manas enjoys reading detective fiction and writing about anything that interests him. When not doing either of the two, he checks Instagram for the latest posts by travellers. Winter is his favourite season and he can happily eat a bowl of noodles any time of the day.
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