I’ve been googling polo ponies. Not as a result of I’m hoping Santa would possibly lastly convey me the gee-gee I’ve been asking for for the final three many years however as a result of I wished to know the way a lot they value.
They’re smooth, unbelievable animals and if the web is right, they value about $180,000 a pop. (And that’s earlier than you’ve even seen the invoice for the hay.)
The purpose I wish to know is that this weekend in among the many roughly 328 tales about Harry and Meghan, Duke and Duchess of Sussex and their forthcoming six-part Netflix collection (together with royal insiders calling the trailer dropping through the Prince and Princess of Wales’ US tour “ugly, malicious and pathetic”) we’ve got this shocker: They appear to have had some cash issues.
According to The Sun, King Charles “stopped taking” his son’s “phone calls begging for cash”.
Harry reportedly “bombarded” the late Queen “with calls when she was put on light duties due to her worsening mobility,” which might imply this passed off sooner or later since October final yr when Her Majesty’s well being disaster began.
“Harry is not as well off as people are led to believe. He was wanting money,” an insider advised the paper. “The late Queen was always happy to speak with Harry but when he asked for money she said, ‘Why don’t you speak to your father?’
“Harry told her that Charles wasn’t taking his calls any more.
“When the Queen asked Charles what he was doing about it because she was fielding so many calls, he told her, ‘I’m not a bank.’”
Hold your (very costly) horses right here: Where has all of the Sussexes’ cash gone?
If you’ve been following the melodramatic Sussex story for the previous few years then you definitely would possible suppose that the couple is positively rolling in dosh due to the laundry listing of offers they’ve signed since pitching up within the US.
First got here news of their Netflix contract, then their Spotify one, adopted by Penguin Random House getting in on the motion and securing Harry’s abilities through a reported multi-title deal. (Quite a flip up for the books for a person who received a B in artwork and D in geography in his ultimate exams.)
That was only the start.
Harry additionally managed to interrupt new floor for the House of Windsor by going out and getting himself that almost all surprising of issues, a job. In March 2021, it emerged he had joined the C-suite on the billion-dollar firm BetterUp because the Chief Impact Officer.
While there has by no means been any indication of how a lot the Duke is likely to be pocketing for the gig, or whether or not he’s being paid in money, shares or all of the vegan energy bars he can carry from the workplace kitchen, you’d need to think about that the worth of this deal is critical.
Meghan has additionally been out on the industrial hustings.
In December 2020 it emerged, through Oprah Winfrey’s Instagram account no much less, that Meghan had ventured into the entrepreneurial world, placing cash into Clevr, a vegan latte model. The following yr she had added ‘author’ to her CV by penning a youngsters’s guide (“semiliterate vanity project,” based on The Telegraph’s evaluate) known as The Bench.
In October 2021 the New York Times received the news that these go-getting Sussexes had been having a crack at Wall Street too and had signed on as “impact partners” with a fintech asset supervisor known as Ethic.
Add all this up … carry the one … and it sounds just like the couple has managed to earn themselves the type of mountain of money that ought to they fancy, they might dive into, Scrooge McDuck-style.
While nobody is aware of the precise determine, estimates have put the whole at upwards of $245 million. (It have to be famous that Harry will donate $2.2 million of the proceeds of his guide to his Sentebale charity and $540,000 to British charity WellChild.)
In quick, when it got here to their new life within the US, it was positively a case of ‘for richer.’
So, once more: Where has all the cash gone?
Is Harry at the moment in search of that bitcoin he dropped down the again of one in every of their a number of beige sofas or checking his favorite jean’s again pockets for these Microsoft shares he received for his eighth birthday?
The couple has not precisely been dwelling an ascetic life financially, particularly having gone out and snapped up a $20 million Montecito property solely months after arriving in America and having proven no indication since then of giving up their predilection for personal jet journey.
Then there may be Meghan’s wardrobe, which noticed her debut greater than $114,000 value of recent items final yr, and Harry’s polo behavior and people $180,000 ponies. (It’s not identified if those he rides as a part of his Los Padres crew are in truth owned by the Duke.)
Oh certain, it’s the allegations of institutional racism and a merciless indifference to their psychological well being woes that get all the eye with regards to the ‘why’ of Megxit, nonetheless, plenty of reviews have additionally steered that cash is likely to be the Pete Best, aka the forgotten Beatle, of this story.
In this yr’s Courtiers: The Hidden Power Behind The Crown, Valentine Low writes that in a tour in Sydney again in 2018, Meghan, “according to several members of staff,” was heard saying, “I can’t believe I’m not getting paid for this.”
Elsewhere he writes that in 2019, “she did the voiceover for a Disney wildlife documentary in return for a charitable donation” nonetheless that some insiders “suspected that in the end she wanted to make money”.
Tom Bower, in Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the warfare between the Windsors, writes within the wake of the Sussexes’ Megxit bombshell (AKA the Instagram submit heard all over the world) that, “Money, they knew, was at the heart of Meghan’s thoughts, and it seemed that she intended to monetise the monarchy.”
After marrying into the royal household, per Bower, Meghan “began to understand that the British monarchy … was neither flush with money nor an invincible luxury Rolls-Royce machine.”
In Finding Freedom, authors Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand report that, when it got here to hashing out their royal ‘divorce’ deal in early 2020, that “a source familiar with the negotiations” advised them that “the biggest row was over money, because it always is.”
The problem of who would foot the invoice for the Sussexes’ post-Palace life has lengthy proved a fraught, finger-pointing one.
In their Oprah outpouring final yr, throughout which the Duke and Duchess had been dressed like they had been going to a mezzosoprano’s Neapolitan funeral, Harry sulkily stated “my family literally cut me off financially”.
Awkward then when it was later revealed that Charles had continued to fund the Duke and Duchess after that they had jetted off into the sundown and had “allocated a substantial sum” to them.
(A Sussex spokesperson then advised the press that Harry’s Oprah remark was “in reference to the first quarter of the fiscal reporting period in the UK” and that “it’s inaccurate to suggest that there’s a contradiction”. That’s clear then …)
Still, we’ve got not gotten to the underside of the riddle right here: Where precisely is that $245 million {dollars} that the world’s most well-known émigrés are supposed to be incomes?
And that’s earlier than we even get to probably the most extraordinary factor of this Sun report which is that reportedly even after Harry and Meghan had accused the royal household of institutional racism, ignoring their struggling and of “total neglect” he nonetheless had the chutzpah to show round and ask them for cash.
According to the identical report “Charles insisted that his son must email him instead” and that “The Sun understands Charles, then Prince of Wales, asked his son to put in requests via email through his personal assistant.”
The story doesn’t element whether or not the Bank of Dad agreed to assist Harry but when this report is correct then it might appear that Harry has some challenges with regards to each {dollars} and sense. (And sure, that is likely to be my cheesiest pun but …)
Daniela Elser is a author and a royal commentator with greater than 15 years’ expertise working with plenty of Australia’s main media titles.
Originally printed as Prince Harry ‘begging’ King Charles for cash amid $245 million paydays
