Meghan Markle - Duchess of Dior?

[MamoruHisaishi]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12206159/amp/Is-Meghan-mega-bucks-Duchess-Dior.html

So this was some mastermind plan to put the Sussexes back in charge of the narrative? Sacked, grifters and failed Dior contract? Is that WME at their best, then?

To be fair to WME, losing the spotify deal was a disaster that wasn't really their fault, as was having H+M's laziness called out in public. The Dior move has pushed that very damaging stuff into the background a little, and has associated Meghan at least with a top notch brand. Even though Dior denied it, they did it nicely, without saying "you must be joking if you think we'd work with her" or similar. (As WME knew they would, because Meghan does wear their clothes.) And that allowed Meghan to deny it along with them, as if it's just one of those silly rumours that we megastarry individuals and brands have to correct from time to time. Lo and behold, Meghan is now equated with Dior and bob's your uncle.

I think it was pretty effective given the terrible position they were in.

There's a lot more damage limitation to come though, because the "fucking grifters" thing is too potent to disappear that quickly, and there is also the tease of the story about the zoom with Harry about ideas.

It will be interesting to see if/when Harry is thrown under the bus as part of Meghan's comeback. We have already seen a bit of that and remember WME represent her but not him.

It will be interesting to see if/when Harry is thrown under the bus as part of Meghan's comeback. We have already seen a bit of that and remember WME represent her but not him

Hang on, I thought they represented Archewell rather than just Meghan?

Looks like I was mistaken, but given the claims that they "always move together" why would she choose a PR agency and then not include Harry?

For the same reason they didn’t come out to deny the copper bath tub story. It was and is a non story to them.

Have a read of the article again - notice that neither Dior nor H&M’s spokesperson were asked for a direct on the record comment before print. The only people cited are “sources”.

This means that WME were trying to renegotiate a deal with Spotify (probably to do with exclusivity)

They produced 12 episodes of straightforward interview-based programming in 2.5 years for a reported $20M. Any suggestion that they weren't ditched by Spotify is absolutely bonkers. They are trotting out the exclusivity thing because it's what the Obamas said and might save a little face. But what would they even be negotiating about exclusivity for? There is no content!

Given the claims that they "always move together" why would she choose a PR agency and then not include Harry?

Why indeed?

I'm sure someone will be along to explain how in some convoluted way it's because they have such shared goals or their marriage is so strong or it's part of the persecution plans of the Daily Mail or something.

And that is indeed an equally valid interpretation. The fact of the matter is that Bill Simmons was cross with the negotiated settlement as evidenced by his comments regardless this means that there were indeed negotiations happening and that this outcome was not necessarily unexpected.

Well, it's associated them with a top notch brand thinking they're not good enough for them, I guess. Even though it might be that they're not the right fit for their strategy these days, most people are going to think that Dior just didn't want to be associated with them for whatever reason.

And it didn't get rid of the grifter comments. It was all over the internet, reported on TV news internationally. They had 4 hours as brand ambassadors and then people laughing at them for being rejected by Dior. Then back to the grifter comments. I don't see how they're out of a bad hole.

Everyone talks about the brilliance of Ari Emanuel but he looks a bit dull to me so far. He's known this is going to happen at Spotify for months. The lay offs and sacking of Ostroff on January must gave told them what was coming. And then, do we think that Simmons didnt say something along those lines in his zoom meeting with H.

So WME have had months to have something positive in place to announce to cover the spotify news - which they must have known would lead to dire speculation. Why didn't they release that? Obviously it's not the end of the Sussexes. They're known everywhere, everyone's talking about them, I'm sure they'll get offers. But it shows that H&M inspire controversy and spark news out of nothing and WME had better be more prepared in future.

So I listen to podcasts and I was very interested when when of my favourite podcasts got a Spotify deal. The hosts were very transparent at the conclusion of their deal of how Spotify very much were keen on exclusivity (they were previously on all other platforms) and indeed the only place you could listen to their shows was on Spotify for 2 years. At the end of their Spotify deal - they did not renew as they felt that is was too restrictive and were able to upload their 2 years worth of content back onto Apple and Podomatic. They said that the money was very good and they had excellent resources at their disposal for advertising and cross platform promotion but they wanted relative independence which they felt they didn’t have with Spotify. They also had audience loss and robust 🤣 feedback with the Spotify move because of the association with Joe Rogan.

I’m “trotting out” exclusivity based on this experience- I was unaware that Michelle Obama had cited this as a reason.

It is interesting that Simmons was free to make the comment. If this was some complex, tightly negotiated deal out of Spotify - surely there would have been provisions included that prevented either party (their employees, directors etc.) from speaking about the other save for a carefully crafted joint statement. That is typically standard in a mutual parting of ways.

They didn't manage to secure that - which speaks volumes about how one sided that negotiation was.

Didn't she sign with WME because she's looking at entertainment opportunities like voice-overs. And Harry's not really interested in that. They're both signed up to the same company to give talks for starting price of £100,000. So they clearly are still working together.

I do think Simmons is a loose cannon. A typical sports writer that mouths off in the heat of the moment. But if Spotify were unhappy, they'd have made him apologise or resign, you'd think. I've been expecting one so have been surprised at Spotify staying silent.

I guess it’s free publicity for Spotify. On, as Archewell would stress, a global scale. Gotta love a bit of global. World wide, international, very very important.

At the end of their Spotify deal

This is the key part of your story @skullbabe

Harry and Meghan have clearly been dumped before the end of their Spotify deal, unless we are supposed to believe that the plan was always to spend $1.7M per episode, and that all the stuff they said about their plans when they signed was a load of rubbish.

This means that WME were trying to renegotiate a deal with Spotify (probably to do with exclusivity)

The Obamas had been complaining about the the exclusivity clause for ages before they officially left. As far back as in 2021, I think. They produced quite a bit of content. If Spotify wouldn't do away with the stipulation for the Obamas, they were never going to do it for the Sussexes. 😆 So I think WME trying to negotiate that would be absurd fruitless. But everything's possible in Aris's world, I guess.

I am wondering what's happened to the Invictus series - it's supposed to be out this summer but it's nearly the end of June and no tx date or trail yet as far as I know, has anyone seen one?

They need to get a move on because it would be a bit weird to leave it until after the 2023 games in September.

I read it would air just before the Games. I also saw there’s been a lot of editing because there was too much focus on Meghan and her wardrobe (for which she billed Netflix) which was afterwards seen as unseemly.

What I find interesting is that the Obamas and Sussexes were clearly quite ill-informed before they entered their deals with Spotify. The Obamas will have had good advisors and yet they didn't value being able to release on various platforms over money.

The Sussexes need close handling. It seems like neither of them is time-focused so they need someone driving their projects on or they drift. But who would Harry listen to? And is he likely to do as asked or dig his heels in? I'd really love a documentary on that side of the couple. No doubt someone will do one one day. 🍿👀

😱

I also saw there’s been a lot of editing because there was too much focus on Meghan and her wardrobe (for which she billed Netflix) which was afterwards seen as unseemly.

Is there a source for this please?

They announced a date for the documentary at the very last minute too. I suspect that Netflix has learned some lessons from last time and will check that they haven't used random footage again because that was an embarrassing blunder. Plus once the trailer is out the social media analysis and comments will be flying everywhere so doing it last minute makes sense.

I do wonder how much of the Spotify cash H&M will actually see as the production costs were presumably high and the deal was terminated earlier than expected.

I am always curious about the actual numbers not that we will ever know but I suspect that they are worrying about money and I suspect it is MM who is going to be the one make the cash going forward.

Plus once the trailer is out the social media analysis and comments will be flying everywhere so doing it last minute makes sense.

Kind of misses the point of a trail if you are too nervous to release it until the last minute!

I do wonder how much of the Spotify cash H&M will actually see as the production costs were presumably high and the deal was terminated earlier than expected.

I would be very curious to see the budget - in my day something like this would involve a producer, presenter and a few days of PA to book resources and do the paperwork but I read somewhere they had a team of 28 people?! (That might be wrong though, I can't remember where I saw it.)

Harry is already represented by WME though. He said so in his acknowledgements at the back of Spare, adding a thank you to his agent there.

I suspect that Meghan and Harry have both been signed up to them for a while, and the splash in Variety about Meghan was just a way to get some positive publicity and coverage for her. (As in, it wasn’t new news, but it was news to us 😀)

SoTedious · Today 15:34
Given the claims that they "always move together" why would she choose a PR agency and then not include Harry?

The obvious answer, I would guess, is that she's preparing to give him the old heave-ho as soon as she's identified a richer man with more Hollywood clout.