Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are “great at getting attention” and the public “devour everything about them,” Netflix boss Ted Sarandos said during a recent speaking engagement, putting pause to speculation that the streaming giant’s partnership with the royals may be running out.
Sarandos, co-CEO of Netflix—which signed a multi-million dollar content creation deal with Harry and Meghan after they split from the monarchy and moved to the U.S. in 2020—discussed the couple during appearances at industry events in California earlier this month.
“The documentary we did on them is still one of our most-watched documentaries of all time on Netflix and huge, particularly in the U.K., where people just devour everything about them,” he said, in a reference to the Harry & Meghan six-part docuseries that first aired in 2022 and was streamed over 81.6 million hours in its first week.
“They’re controversial, but that’s usually a good thing. You may love them or hate them, but you’re watching.”
He also hinted at the couple’s future projects for the service, as they move into developing scripted content as part of the partnership, with one adaptation of a hit romance novel already announced.
“I do think that they are also going to be very strong storytellers,” he said. “With great exposure to media in terms of what people want to talk about, what they think about, and they’re great at getting attention.
“They’ve taken that attention, and turned it into great [philanthropic] work around the world. And you can see the kind of impact that they have and they can have on other celebrities, which is very smart. And we’re really happy with that one too.”
Since their signing with Netflix, speculation about Harry and Meghan’s working relationship with the streaming giant has circulated, compounded when Meghan’s animated children’s show Pearl was scrapped in 2022 while in development.
In 2023, despite debuting one of Netflix’s most-watched docuseries, attention was again drawn to how long the partnership would last after two subsequent projects, Live to Lead and Heart of Invictus, failed to repeat their first success.
This, again, was discussed when the couple and podcast partner Spotify announced a mutual split in the summer of 2023 after signing a similar multi-million-dollar content deal in 2020.
Sarandos’ recent comments are a sign that Netflix and the royal couple are still committed to one another, and follow Meghan’s own statement in November 2023 that she was excited about future projects.
“We have so many exciting things on the slate,” she said on the Variety Women of Power red carpet in Los Angeles. “I can’t wait until we can announce them but I’m just really proud of what we’re creating and my husband is loving it too.”
Newsweek approached representatives of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle for comment.
James Crawford-Smith is Newsweek’s royal reporter, based in London. You can find him on X (formerly Twitter) at @jrcrawfordsmith and read his stories on Newsweek’s The Royals Facebook page.
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