Behind the deals it's all about Me(ghan)

SOME people think Meghan Markle is a self-serving minx who married into royalty as a game plan. Others are less kind. I liked Meg when she started dating Prince Harry and hoped the Markle Sparkle would brighten up our lives. The American actress, best known then for playing Rachel Zane in legal drama Suits, seemed like a breath of fresh air. But as Meghan Duchess For Sale? reminded us, the fairy tale quickly turned Grimm.

- with GARRY BUSHELL

Less than two years after their 2020 wedding, the couple stepped away from royal duties and decamped to California.

The following March, they starred in a heavily choreographed interview with Oprah Winfrey where Harry's Cinderella put the boot in.

Meghan's “truth” clashed with reality at least five times, but her claims of royal racism - saying one relative was “concerned” about unborn baby Archie's skin colour — were swallowed whole by the twitterati. (And laughed off by US comedian Chris Rock: “That's not racist - even black people want to know how brown the baby is going to be.”)

The Channel 5 show, replete with royal reporters, detailed the Sussexes’ various attempts to cash in on their semi-royal status. Their eye-watering £112million deal with Netflix under-delivered. Harry & Meghan did relatively well, but Polo and Heart Of Invictus were ratings flops.

Their Spotify podcast deal failed to recover the £15m advance, with one exec branding them “grifters” (con artists) and mocking their podcast ideas.

Harry's ghostwritten memoir Spare fared better. But now Meg is at the forefront of their enterprises.