Prince Harry and Meghan Markle reportedly started talks with the failed streaming platform Quibi a year before Megxit, it has been claimed.
The Sussexes initiated the talks with Quibi executives in early 2019 according to The Daily Telegraph. The couple officially announced they were stepping down from their positions as senior members of the Royal Family in January 2020.
Quibi execs approached Harry and Meghan in 2019
Prince Harry reportedly first met with Quibi executes in early 2019, a year before he and Markle publicly announced they were stepping down as senior working members of the Royal Family.
Page six reported back in September 2020 that Quibi founder Jeffrey Katzenberg and CEO Meg Whitman approached the Sussexes, hoping to sign an exclusive deal with them.
Prince Harry and Meghan were reportedly in talks with Quibi execs before Megxit
Katzenberg and Whitman personally went to see Harry and Meghan and tried to convince them to sign an exclusive deal with Quibi, but the Sussexes ended up signing a deal with Netflix according to Page Six.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex signed a deal, reportedly worth $100 million, with Netflix in September 2020. They signed a separate deal, reportedly worth $25 million, with Spotify in December 2020.
The Telegraph reported that the Sussexes were already discussing “well-developed proposals” with Quibi in early 2019. The talks reportedly centered around a deal to produce content for the platform.
“There were well-developed proposals in place with Quibi from early 2019,” a source told The Telegraph.
Harry and Meghan reportedly had multiple meetings with Quibi execs but the plans were put on hold during COVID-19.
Quibi announced it was shutting down in October 2020
Quibi, a mobile-centric streaming service, was founded by the former Disney chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg and former president and CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise Meg Whitman.
The streaming service, which launched on April 6, 2020, aimed to deliver short-form moblie content to subscribers’ cell phones.
However, Quibi announced it was shutting down in October 2020 after failing to attract enough subscribers to keep it afloat.
According to Monster and Critics, Katzenberg and Whitman said Quibi failed partly due to the COVID-19 and partly because “[the idea] wasn’t strong enough to justify a stand-alone streaming service.”
Harry had claimed he and Meghan had no plans to sign media deals before Megxit
The Telegraph reported that the Sussexes and Quibi had discussed a proposal to produce 10-minute videos featuring Harry.
Harry reportedly held his final meetings with Quibi executives in January 2020, the same month that he and Markle announced they were quitting the Royal Family.
The report that the Sussexes had been talking with Quibi a year before Megxit appeared to contradict their claim during the interview with Oprah that they had no plans before Megxit to sign lucrative media deals.
Monsters and Critics reported that Harry claimed that he and Markle decided to sign multimillion-dollar deals with Netflix and Spotify so that he could pay for his family’s security after Prince Charles allegedly cut him off financially.
“The Netflix and the Spotify… that was never part of the plan,” Harry said. “We didn’t have a plan. That was suggested by somebody else by the point where my family cut me off financially, and I had to afford security for us.”