Prince Harry Reportedly Wanted to Interview Trump and Putin

Ivanka Trump (L) and Britain's Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex view displays of US items of the Royal Collection at Buckingham palace at Buckingham Palace in central London on June 3, 2019, on the first day of their three-day State Visit to the UK. - Britain rolled out the red carpet for US President Donald Trump on June 3 as he arrived in Britain for a state visit already overshadowed by his outspoken remarks on Brexit. — (Image credit: Photo by Mandel Ngan / Getty)

Prince Harry had a pretty out-there idea for a podcast when he and Meghan Markle first entered into a contract with Spotify, which was announced in 2020.

Bloomberg investigated the story, speaking to various people with knowledge of Harry's discussions with producers, and found out that—among other things—the Duke of Sussex wanted to interview controversial guests about their childhood traumas. Proposed guests included former U.S. president Donald Trump, current president of Russia Vladimir Putin, and Facebook and Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg.

While if this was able to come to fruition, it would surely have made for fascinating conversations, it was soon pointed out to Harry that these people would be close to impossible to pin down for interviews—especially on such a personal topic.

Harry's other ideas included a podcast about fatherhood, and one about various societal issues, for which he reportedly named Pope Francis as a potential guest.

Aside from a holiday special episode he co-hosted with Meghan in 2020, the duke didn't end up developing a podcast of his own after all.

Meanwhile, the duchess was at the helm of the podcast Archetypes, which was released in 2022 and explored some of the labels that are often unfairly placed on women.

But just this month, it was announced that Archetypes would not be renewed for a second season, and that indeed the Sussexes' contract with Spotify was coming to an end altogether.

"Spotify and Archewell Audio have mutually agreed to part ways and are proud of the series we made together," a spokesperson for the royal couple said in a statement.

Soon afterwards, Marie Claire reported that Meghan's management had confirmed that the duchess would still "develop content" for fans in the future, and was already considering "another platform," though they left the details at that.

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Iris Goldsztajn is a London-based journalist, editor and author. She is the morning editor at Marie Claire, and her work has appeared in the likes of British Vogue, InStyle, Cosmopolitan, Refinery29 and SELF. Iris writes about everything from celebrity news and relationship advice to the pitfalls of diet culture and the joys of exercise. She has many opinions on Harry Styles, and can typically be found eating her body weight in cheap chocolate.