Prince Harry turns 40 on Sunday, September 15, and apart from millions of dollars of revenue from his memoir, Spare, and his good works with the Invictus Games, the Duke is said to “want more.”
“I think in the back of Harry’s mind probably he’s thinking ‘I’ve got to get on with it, I’ve got to really go for it now,'” veteran royal author Ingrid Seward told The Sun.
The Duke of Sussex completed a decade of service in the British Armed Forces in 2015. The idea for the Invictus Games came to him after he attended the Warrior Games in the U.S. in 2013, a competition for wounded, injured, or ill service members and veterans. There have been six games so far, with the seventh event set to take place in Vancouver, Canada, in February 2025.
The games are so tied to the rebel prince that it led Seward to point out, “He has the success of the Invictus Games, which we all know, but we can’t really name anything else. There were lots of other philanthropic things, but just off the top of my head, I only think Invictus. So I think Harry needs to, kind of, get a stronger foothold into that world that he says he wants to promote so badly.”
Harry and his wife, Meghan Markle, signed a reported $100 million dollar deal with Netflix in 2020, which is set to expire next fall, and their Spotify deal, also inked in 2020 after “Megxit,” was worth roughly $20 to 25 million dollars before being axed in June 2023 for underwhelming output. The pair are said to have only been paid a fraction of the original deal amount.
Harry’s autobiography went on to become the fastest-selling nonfiction book of all time, but also managed, in the words of one royal insider, to likely have “permanently destroyed his relationship with his family.”
Despite his and the Duchess of Sussex’ “faux royal life,” the sun-glitz vibe of California and Hollywood seems to be turning cloudy for the fiery-haired prince as he begins to “regret” his move to America.
“During his first six months in the States, Harry found everything new and exciting, but the glamour is definitely wearing off,” royal author Tom Quinn told an outlet.
“However big your garden and Harry and Meghan’s garden at Montecito is enormous, there’s only so much you can do when you have no practical skills and you have always paid people to cook, clean and garden for you,” he added.
This insight about the Sussex Hollywood freeze-out picking up steam again comes after the royal rebels’ attempt to transition into influencers and “health and wellness gurus” with Meghan’s American Riviera Orchard. Moving from the structured world of British royalty to the competitive and often unpredictable entertainment industry presented hurdles to the pair, even with Meghan’s past acting experience.
