Harry and Meghan are ‘very money driven’ and ‘like to be like James Corden’ royal expert claims

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are ‘very driven by money’ and would like to be earning ‘millions’ a year ‘like their friend James Corden’, a royal expert has claimed.

The royal couple, who have an £18million deal with Spotify and a £100million deal with Netflix, want to get to a level where they can ‘earn lots of money and do good things’,  former royal correspondent Richard Mineards has claimed.

Speaking to the Evening Standard, Mr Mineards – who now works for Harry and Meghan’s local paper The Montecito Journal – explained:  ‘They’ve obviously got their eye on the money like their good friend James Corden who now earns something like $12 million per season of The Late Late Show.

‘I think they’d like to get on that sort of level where hopefully they can earn lots of money and get their views across but also do good things with The Archewell foundation as well.’

He added that couple – who live in a $14million mansion in Montecito, California, with their children Archie, two, and Lilibet, eight months,  have kept a low profile but that Meghan, 40,  is a regular at Montecito Country Mart, a local shopping village with its own designer children’s clothing boutique Poppy. 

Mr Mineards went on that locals can expect to see ‘the couple more in the community’  as lockdown is over and that Harry, 36, has been spotted riding his bike on the beach with his Labrador.   

‘I don’t think they’ll move back to the UK at all. The British people see [Meghan] as the Wallis Simpson stealing the golden prince. They are much more welcome on this side of the Atlantic,’ he added.

James Corden, 43, has hosted the Late Late show for six years. In October, he reportedly signed  a £15million, two-year deal with US TV chiefs to keep presenting the show. 

Harry famously appeared on the show in February 2021, where he claimed that he and Meghan Markle ‘never walked away’ from the royal family and he did ‘what any husband or father would do’ by emigrating to Los Angeles from London, declaring: ‘I had to get my family out there’.

In one extraordinary moment Harry raps the theme tune to The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air outside the mansion where it was filmed, before Corden video calls Meghan, who calls her husband ‘Haz’ and tells him not to buy it because she’s ‘done moving’. Harry then pops inside to use the toilet before the friends head off to complete a muddy army assault course together.

Harry famously appeared on The Late Late show with James Corden in February 2021, where he claimed that he and Meghan Markle ‘never walked away’ from the royal family and he did ‘what any husband or father would do’ by emigrating to Los Angeles from London, declaring: ‘I had to get my family out there’

Since stepping back from royal life the couple have under taken lucrative deals with media companies.

Last week it emerged they would not  cut ties with Spotify despite an ongoing row over the spread of Covid misinformation on the Joe Rogan podcast.

The couple said they had expressed concerns to the streaming giant about the ‘all too real consequences of Covid-19 misinformation on its platform’.

But they added said they were committed to continuing their reported £18million deal with the tech giant ‘to ensure changes to its platform are made to help address this public health crisis’.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex had faced pressure to walk away from their deal with Spotify after musicians Joni Mitchell and Neil Young demanded that their songs be removed from the platform.

Under pressure: Harry and Meghan say they have expressed concerns to the platform

It comes as the audio giant Spotify reportedly took production into its own hands after the Sussexes’ £18million podcast deal a year ago, with a pledge to promote ‘shared values’.

Meghan and Harry have only made 35 minutes of content for their Archewell Audio channel, which was put together with Spotify’s Gimlet Studios, since December 15 2020. They had promised a series in 2021 but it has never happened.

Netflix followed Spotify and is also taking steps to get Prince Harry and Meghan Markle to produce some shows in 2022 – 16 months after they signed a reputed £120million deal to make TV. 

Spotify announced the partnership with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s Archewell Audio in December 2020 as they were ‘citizens of the world’ who wanted to ‘elevate underrepresented voices’.

But aside from a 33-minute ‘holiday special’ that month featuring friends such as Sir Elton John and James Corden – and the intensely private couple’s son, Archie, speaking his first public words – there has been a deafening silence.

The latest move follows Harry and Meghan adding two more ‘entertainment’ companies to their growing business empire in Delaware.