Meghan Markle accused of ‘faking’ interviews for Spotify podcast Archetypes

Meghan Markle's Spotify podcast has been axed by the streamer. Photo / Spotify

Meghan Markle has been accused of faking some of the interviews on her podcast Archetypes, which has recently been axed by Spotify.

Industry sources are claiming the Duchess of Sussex had her staff conduct several of the guest interviews featured on the podcast, with audio of her own voice edited into the final cuts of certain episodes, reports Podnews, a podcast-focused news site.

The accusations come days after it was revealed that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s multimillion-dollar contract with the streaming service had ended by “mutual agreement”.

Meghan's Archetypes podcast. Photo / Spotify

The site reports that multiple sources claim some of Meghan’s interviews were conducted by her staff, although they did not point to specific episodes where this occurred.

Representatives for both Spotify and the Duchess of Sussex have been contacted for comment.

Archetypes’ 12 episodes included interviews with several celebrity guests, from Mariah Carey to Mindy Kaling and Serena Williams. But it’s not the first time questions have been asked about her part in the interview process for other guests on the podcast.

New York journalist Allison Yarrow appeared on Archetypes in August 2022, but admitted that she didn’t speak to Meghan herself on the podcast, being interviewed by one of her producers instead.

Yarrow appeared on an episode titled To “B” or not to “B”? in which Meghan “explored the origin and plague” of the word “b****” and shared on Instagram that she had spoken with an audio producer called Farrah Sarfarfi.

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The journalist shared a photo of herself posing in front of a sign for audio production company Gimlet, thanking Sarfarfi for being an “excellent interviewer”.

It comes after Spotify and Archewell issued a joint statement last week revealing the decision not to renew Meghan’s podcast for another season, having “mutually agreed to part ways”.

The statement added: “We are proud of the series we made together.”

The Sussexes signed the Spotify deal in late 2020, but now the Wall Street Journal has reported insiders say the couple did not meet the productivity standard required to receive their full payout. Conversations about renewing the series are understood to have stalled, resulting in the decision to cut the podcast.

Meghan’s talent agency WME told the Wall Street Journal that the team behind the podcast are “proud” of what they created and said that Meghan is continuing to create Archetypes content for “another platform”.

But the day after the decision was announced, Spotify’s head of innovation and monetisation Bill Simmons launched a scathing attack on the Sussexes as “f***ing grifters” on his own podcast.

Simmons, a former sports writer who founded podcast network The Ringer before selling it to Spotify in 2020, revealed that he had called Prince Harry on Zoom to try to “help him with a podcast idea”.

“I’ve 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,” he told listeners, adding, “It’s one of my best stories.”