Taylor Swift must have known Meghan Markle was ‘trouble’ when she rejected her podcast invite

It has recently been revealed that Prince Harry‘s and Meghan Markle‘s Spotify podcast deal will not be renewed after the release of Markle’s podcast series was back in 2022. It has since surfaced that pop sensation Taylor Swift was invited to be a guest on Markle’s podcast Archetypes, but turned the offer down.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have faced numerous cancellations and rejections since they left their royal duties and moved to America. One of these cancellations was the Spotify Original podcast series, Archetypes, which first aired in August 2022.

It was revealed that Swift was invited to be a guest on the show but the invite was declined via a representative for the singer. The invitation was personally written by Markle herself. However, even having the royal title of Duchess was not enough to sway the pop sensation to sit down for a podcast recording session.

Swift has not made any comments about her decision to not appear on Markle’s podcast. One person who did publicly shine a negative light on Archetypes was Spotify executive and Head of Podcast Innovation and Monetization, Bill Simmons. According to CNN, he suggested that Harry and Meghan were “grifters” since they did not meet the “productivity requirements” as part of their podcast deal with Spotify.

“‘The F***ing Grifters.’ That’s the podcast we should have launched with them. I have got to get drunk one night and tell the story of the Zoom I had with Harry to try and help him with a podcast idea. It’s one of my best stories … F*** them. The grifters.”

Based on the publicly available information about the partnership between Archwell Audio and Spotify, both Harry and Meghan were required to be involved in a podcast each. Prince Harry was unable to release a series after supposedly not being able to land on an idea. One show he had in mind was about war veterans but he was struggling to make it compelling for an audio format.

Archetypes is a podcast series where Meghan Markle interviews a variety of people to discuss stereotypes that hold women back. Some of the people featured in this show were Serena Williams, Mariah Carey, and Constance Wu, just to name a few. The podcast series has a total of 12 episodes, and they are still available on Spotify.