Prince Harry Reportedly Wanted to Interview Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin for a Podcast About Childhood Trauma

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.