[imagesource: Max Mumby/Indigo | Getty Images]

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, also known as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, seem to have settled quite nicely in Los Angeles.

Harry was seen cruising the city with James Corden recently, and the pair will come under intense scrutiny once their interview with Oprah airs this Sunday.

Folks like Piers Morgan will attack en masse, no matter what is and isn’t said in that interview, but at least this way Harry and Meghan control their own narrative, rather than having unnamed ‘royal insiders’ concocting stories on their behalf.

Perhaps there was a financial consideration, too, and now that they won’t be returning as full-time working members of the British Royal Family, there is a degree of financial uncertainty.

Forbes decided to take a closer look at the couple’s finances, and crunched the numbers:

With financial support from the Crown abruptly shut off, the relocated royals have relied largely on the estimated $10 million inheritance Harry received from his late mother’s estate.

Contrary to published reports, a representative confirms he was not a beneficiary of any of the nearly $100 million (£70 million) fortune left by his great-grandmother, the Queen Mother.

Meghan is believed to have contributed around $2 million in after-tax earnings from her various film and TV roles, the majority of which came via Suits.

When you look at the outgoings, that inheritance and the $2 million doesn’t go as far as one might think:

They bought a $14.7 million estate in Montecito, the seaside Santa Barbara, California, enclave that’s home to such Hollywood celebrities as Oprah Winfrey and Ellen DeGeneres and wife Portia de Rossi, in August 2020.

They put down $5 million and now have a nearly $10 million mortgage.

Image: NearMap

The Duke and Duchess also repaid the Sovereign Grant for the $3 million spent to remodel Frogmore, which remains their UK family home.

That leaves Prince Harry and Meghan with a surprisingly modest nest egg of roughly $5 million—at least for now.

I know – just the $5 million. How will they ever survive?

There are countless opportunities to cash in on their fame, but as things stand, Forbes estimates the couple’s net worth at somewhere around $10 million, including the equity from their Montecito home.

For a point of comparison, the combined value of the British Monarch’s holdings with the Crown Estate is worth an estimated $25 billion, and a 2019 investigation found the Queen’s net worth to be around $500 million.

That net worth of around $10 million does not take into account future earnings for deals they’ve already inked, such as their partnership with Spotify:

The Duke and Duchess plan to produce podcasts and shows that “elevate voices that maybe aren’t being heard” exclusively for the streaming service’s 320 million monthly users around the world.

Spotify’s three-year podcasting deal with Prince Harry and Meghan could be worth as much as $15 million to $18 million, according to industry sources…

Perhaps the biggest potential moneymaker for them: a lucrative five-year, $100 million contract with Netflix, signed in September 2020, to produce documentaries, docuseries, feature films, scripted shows and children’s programming.

It’s unclear whether Prince Harry and Meghan received an advance on the deal, which is likely to contribute handsomely to their net worth down the road.

OK, all of a sudden that $10 million figure seems but a drop in the ocean of what the next few years will bring.

There are also potential speaking engagements (Harry was rumoured to have earned around $1 million for speaking at a JPMorgan summit in Miami in February last year), to add some extra spending money into the equation.

All told, it appears that the couple doesn’t need much financial assistance from the monarchy, and are all set to charter their own path in the years to come.

Good luck to them.

[source:forbes]