When Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, stepped away from their official working roles with the British Royal Family in 2020 and relocated to coastal California, they brought a one-of-a-kind commodity to Tinseltown: authentic royal cachet that no studio or PR team could manufacture. What followed was five years of high-stakes commercial deals, viral media attention, and unexpected setbacks that ultimately led the couple to pack their bags and return to the United Kingdom – a shift that has drawn a largely apathetic reaction from the American public.
When they first launched their cross-Atlantic “American dream,” the couple made clear their goals extended far beyond simple financial independence. In her bombshell 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey, Meghan framed the move as a chance to claim personal autonomy, calling the ability to make her own choices “liberating.” For Harry, the relocation promised a level of privacy and freedom he argued his family could “undoubtedly never” access in Britain, a life he believes his mother, Princess Diana, would have wanted him to build.
The couple put down roots in Montecito, an exclusive celebrity enclave nestled a few hours north of Los Angeles, where their neighbors included A-listers like Winfrey, Gwyneth Paltrow and Rob Lowe. Major commercial opportunities followed almost immediately: multi-million-dollar content deals with Spotify and Netflix turned the couple into major players in the global entertainment industry almost overnight.
“When they first arrived, they were incredibly high-profile, instantly grabbing headlines and commanding global attention,” explained Stacy Jones, chief executive officer of leading entertainment marketing and PR firm Hollywood Branded. “For celebrities embedded in the Hollywood ecosystem, there is no shortage of exclusive events, high-profile parties and opportunities to engage. But what many quickly realize is that almost every one of these opportunities is tied to selling something – and Harry and Meghan had no shortage of personal brand to market.”
For many observers, the news of the couple’s departure came as a surprise. LA-based royal journalist Elizabeth Holmes, author of *HRH: So Many Thoughts on Royal Style*, notes that the couple had appeared to fully settle into their quiet, upscale California lifestyle. But reactions to the announcement across the United States have been mixed at best, with many outlets and members of the public showing little regret over their exit. The New York Post, a publication that has been openly critical of the couple for years, celebrated the news with the cheeky headline “Throne Back!”, declaring America’s “long national nightmare” over.
Critics often dismiss the couple’s Hollywood tenure as a failure, but they did achieve a feat most new entrants to Tinseltown never pull off: convincing some of the world’s biggest media companies to invest nine-figure sums in their personal brand. The harder challenge, it turned out, was sustaining that early momentum.
Their Spotify partnership, reportedly valued at up to $25 million, produced *Archetypes*, Meghan’s 12-episode podcast that drew A-list guests including Serena Williams and Mariah Carey. But just two years into the multi-year deal, Spotify and the couple’s Archewell Audio production label announced they had “mutually agreed to part ways.”
Similarly, the couple’s 2020 five-year deal with Netflix, reportedly valued between $60 million and $100 million, delivered a handful of original projects, but the partnership was renegotiated into a far less lucrative arrangement amid a broader industry-wide downturn that has squeezed content spending across streaming platforms. Behind the scenes, the couple’s production venture faced persistent turmoil, with high staff turnover leading some former employees to privately refer to themselves as the “Sussex Survivors Club.”
Harry did see breakout commercial success, but almost exclusively when his work centered on his own experience as a royal. His 2023 memoir *Spare* became a global publishing phenomenon, landing a reported $20 million advance and selling more than six million copies worldwide to earn the title of fastest-selling non-fiction book in recorded history. To promote the book, Harry joined prominent trauma specialist Dr. Gabor Maté for a public conversation exploring how his childhood as a working royal shaped his lifelong mental health struggles. Speaking to BBC Newsnight, Maté described Harry as “very personable, very sensitive,” noting the prince is committed to ensuring he “doesn’t pass on his traumas to his children.”
Harry remains a marketable commodity when the content centers on his own story, the Royal Family, or the causes he has long championed. He took on the role of chief impact officer at Silicon Valley-based coaching firm BetterUp, and co-created the Apple TV+ mental health docuseries *The Me You Can’t See* alongside Winfrey. His Netflix projects leaned into his long-standing personal interests: *Heart of Invictus* followed wounded military veterans training for the Invictus Games Harry founded, while *Polo* explored his love for the equestrian sport. Neither project came close to matching the viral attention generated by the couple’s bombshell Netflix docuseries *Harry & Meghan* or the explosive personal revelations in *Spare*.
In 2022, Harry delivered a high-profile keynote address at an informal UN General Assembly session marking Nelson Mandela International Day in New York, where he reflected on his mother’s legacy, his connection to Africa, and Mandela’s work. Still, experts note Harry struggled to break out of the “royal typecast” that defined his public identity in the US.
For Meghan, a former *Suits* actress, the most recent project was *With Love, Meghan*, a Netflix cooking and lifestyle series that showcased the couple’s idyllic Montecito life, complete with rescue chickens and home-grown strawberries set against the backdrop of the Santa Ynez Mountains. Though the series was canceled after two seasons, it earned an Emmy nomination in the Outstanding Lifestyle Series category earlier this year. Earlier in 2026, Netflix ended its partnership with Meghan’s lifestyle brand As Ever. As Jones puts it: “Netflix produces movies. Netflix doesn’t produce jam.”
Critics have attacked the carefully curated, upscale lifestyle Meghan presented on the show as out of touch, but Jones points out that even negative press can hold brand value, as it keeps a public figure at the center of conversation. Meghan’s projects kept her in the public eye and gave audiences consistent content to engage with, even as the commercial momentum faded.
Royal commentator Kinsey Schofield, host of a popular podcast focused on the British Royal Family, argues the couple’s return to the UK is tied to their core brand. “In moving to Britain, it looks like they are continuing to chase that proximity to the Royal Family to validate themselves or, in some cases, to commercialise,” Schofield said. “Meghan’s been cosplaying as a royal selling her teas and her fruit spread through As Ever since it launched.”
The Sussexes still have a small slate of projects in development in the US: they recently released a documentary focused on the Girl Scouts, and a scripted series set in the elite world of professional polo, produced by the team behind *Gossip Girl*, is still in the works. Still, their half-decade American experiment offers a clear case study in the limits of celebrity fame in Hollywood. A well-known name can open the door to opportunity, but it cannot guarantee long-term commercial success or staying power.
Jones notes that the couple’s struggles have unfolded against a uniquely challenging moment for the entertainment industry. “Hollywood is going through an incredibly hard time right now, and it’s a fractured landscape,” she explained. Widespread layoffs, repeated corporate restructuring, and persistent turnover have destabilized media companies across the sector, making it far harder to launch and sustain a new production venture. “It is pretty hard to start and launch a company and keep it going,” Jones said. “When that company is being launched by someone who is a mega media star, it needs some really strong people supporting it.”
While the couple no longer hold the A-list status they claimed when they first arrived in the US, and they have framed their return to the UK as a bid to live as private citizens, few experts expect them to fade from public view entirely. “They will never be private citizens anywhere in their lives,” Jones said. “They are not people who can ever become background players. They are stars of their own show – or stars of someone else’s show. Even if they’re lower-level stars, they’re still stars.”
