How Prince Harry's become Spare to Meghan Markle's relentless ambitions: There's no sign of him in the Duchess's podcast or second series of Netflix show

She may have her critics – but even they would surely acknowledge that the Duchess of Sussex is nothing if not indefatigable.

Indeed, few celebrities would perhaps embark on another podcast series after their first was so vividly, and publicly, panned.

Yet despite being called a ‘grifter’ by Spotify boss Bill Simmons for her efforts with Archetypes, her 2022 attempt to make it in this highly competitive world, Meghan popped right back up on Thursday to announce she was reviving her podcasting career with a new series, Confessions of a Female Founder.

Launching next month, it will see Meghan interview eight women bosses ‘who have turned dreams into realities’ and invite them to share their ‘tips, tricks and . . . tumbles’. One almost can’t wait.

Another surprise came on Friday last week when Netflix caught the media world off-guard by revealing it will stream a ‘second series’ of With Love, Meghan – despite the fact that the hostessing and homemaking show devised and presented by the duchess has had savage reviews across the board.

Making the announcement three days after its launch – and, significantly, before the release of Netflix’s weekly viewing figures – the company said it had made a further eight episodes, shot at the same time as the first series, and will be putting them out ‘this autumn’.

So what can we expect from series two of the show, and of this new podcast?

In short: absolutely no Harry whatsoever. It can be revealed that the TV show and audio series will be entirely solo efforts, an all-Meghan affair.

Sources say there is ‘no sign’ of Prince Harry in the second TV series and no glimpse of their children, Archie, five, and Lilibet, three, either.

‘He’s not in it,’ I am told. ‘It’s her and more friends. More of the same.’

In the first series, Harry showed up for a few minutes at the end of the last episode, when Meghan threw a celebration brunch to honour the launch of her new lifestyle business, now called As Ever.

Appearing sheepish in front of the camera, the prince said exactly 14 words, mumbling: ‘Well done, you did a really great job, and I love it.’ Then, raising a glass, he added: ‘To you.’

While his wife repeatedly refers to ‘H’ and ‘my lovely husband’ and talks about how much he loves her bacon, he is an off-stage presence and seems to have opted – or been told – to minimise his appearances. Obviously, he also won’t be any part of the girl-power podcast Confessions of a Female Founder either.

So, as Meghan moves to carve out her place in the spotlight, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Harry has become the ‘spare’ – as he might put it – at least in his wife’s working life.

While she embarks on a new media blitz, appearing on chat shows and red carpets, Harry has instead seemingly retreated into domestic obscurity.

Persistent reports that there is marital trouble in their Montecito paradise are described by sources close to the couple as ‘exaggerated’. They say With Love, Meghan was always a ‘personal project’ of the duchess, and that she and Harry ‘fully support’ each other’s work while also pursuing their own passions.

And yet, as his wife pursues her latest energetic rebrand as a lifestyle guru and businesswoman, the more pointedly the question recurs: where do Meghan’s ambitions leave her husband?

We do have something of a portrait of his daily life. Meghan tells us he’s a great father to their young children and he often does the school run and walks the dogs. She says he loves California and its beaches, and we know from a video posted by an instructor that he’s learning to surf.

Playing polo with the local team in Santa Barbara is an expensive and time-consuming hobby for the prince, and there are a couple of well paid part-time jobs – the coaching firm BetterUp and eco tourism outfit Travalyst – which seem to occupy him for no more than a handful of days a month.

His duties for these firms, I’m told, are carried out remotely from their $15 million (£11.6 million) home.

Meanwhile, his charities, Archewell and Invictus – which will likely be Harry’s lasting legacy – have their own experienced executive teams.

None of it seems to amount to what most would recognise as a job; in an interview earlier this month in People magazine Meghan talked about the two of them having ‘day dates’ – meaning lunches at home.

So is semi-employed Harry getting left behind? Certainly, it appeared clear from the moment Meghan signed her deal with media supremo Ari Emanuel at talent agency WME in April 2023 – just her, not her and Harry – that she was going it alone.

And although people think she’s been far from shrewd with her TV show, the renewal deal speaks of some strategic thinking from someone somewhere.

Let’s be clear: Netflix has not recommissioned With Love, Meghan because people loved it. It sits at a woeful 33 per cent on online review site Rotten Tomatoes. Critics have also been savage – one writer said it had ‘the entertainment value of a hostage video’, while others have described it as ‘gormless’, ‘useless’ and offering a tellingly Meghan-centric view of the world.

The eight-parter shows Meghan and ‘friends’ – some of whom it becomes clear she doesn’t know, like comedian Mindy Kaling who she ticks off for calling her Meghan Markle not Meghan Sussex – making things which they don’t want or need, and not even making them very well.

See the bath salts into which Meghan poured neat arnica oil – potentially making a serious skin irritant, as it ought to have been mixed with a carrier oil.

But insiders believe Meghan’s team anticipated exactly this backlash, and therefore made a ‘genius’ initial deal for two series, always knowing criticism was inevitable given her divisive status.

The reasoning was that they could announce the second series and thus deflect from any suggestion that the show was bad, or a flop, just when that negative chatter reached a peak.

Announcing the ‘recommission’ – which, rather than being a commitment to a whole new shoot, is just the release of an already made show – ahead of the ratings on Tuesday was also a canny move.

In the event, the show just squeaked on to the Netflix global Top Ten, with 2.6 million views, the same as ninth-placed, Drive To Survive – about the world of Formula 1 racing. It is an enormous step down from the streamer’s biggest show, Running Point, which has 12.2 million views in two weeks. Interestingly, the comedy starring Kate Hudson is written and produced by one Mindy Kaling.

But it might easily not have reached that benchmark, which would have been an embarrassing blow. Hence, perhaps, the timing.

Indeed, we can expect the show to drop off that Top Ten list next week. It has already fallen out of the UK Top Ten. Netflix fully understands, as does Team Meghan, that many of these first viewers will have been simply curious to get a peek into her world.

They may not want to stick around to watch Meghan prepare lavender-scented towels and declare ‘love is in the details, gang’ in episode four. Or even as far as that celebratory brunch and glimpse of Prince Harry in his aviator sunglasses in the closing minutes of the last episode.

One senior broadcasting executive, critical of With Love, Meghan, observes that there is a problem with making the two series back to back. ‘You lose any chance to reflect on what did and did not work in the first outing. In this case I would say that there is a lot that you would want to do differently. But they’ve just been really arrogant about it and decided that what they had was perfect and no need to make changes.’

Another executive says of the recommission: ‘This was 100 per cent a write-off by Netflix. It has piggy-backed a very cost-effective, or cheap, series off the back of an existing one. The deal will have had to produce so many hours of programming to fulfil the deal with Meghan and Harry, or else pay the Sussexes out. So this was just a way of not spending more money on them.’

(Though sources close to the Sussexes deny there was an ‘hours requirement’ or that Netflix would greenlight a second series as a defence mechanism against a possible backlash).

Now, as we enter the final six months of the Netflix contract – said to be worth $100 million but in reality worth a fraction of that – what are the prospects of its renewal?

The couple’s only hit show remains the tell-all series where they – perhaps irrevocably – burned their bridges with the Royal Family.

Other endeavours, like the children’s show Pearl was cancelled before it was made. Two fictional shows – an adaptation of the chick lit book Meet Me At The Lake and a modern retelling of Great Expectations told through the eyes of Miss Havisham – appear not to have progressed.

Of Harry’s two solo projects, Heart of Invictus gained some of the lowest viewing figures on the streamer in 2023, while last year’s documentary series Polo, which he produced, was widely derided.

But, in an almost Lazarus-like twist, I hear that, despite the flops, there remains a possibility for a continued but very, very much smaller Netflix deal just with Meghan. The emphasis for this new deal would be more lifestyle TV shows and to continue the streamer’s brand partnership with As Ever. That brand is about to go live and sell biscuit mixes and jam – or, as they call it, ‘fruit spread’.

Any deal, then, will surely depend very much on the brand’s success. Netflix calls As Ever a ‘lifestyle brand dedicated to beautifully crafted essentials’, adding that it ‘showcases a collection of products, personally developed by Meghan, over the past year, having been honed over years of home cooking and entertaining’.

Certainly, what has been made so far is beautifully wrapped – the jam comes double-packed as if it was a bottle of perfume and apparently is going to cost $15 (£11.60) a jar.

Some, though, remain unconvinced Meghan has a genuine future as a lifestyle influencer and broadcaster.

One source notes that launching a ‘businesswoman’ podcast within days of releasing a ‘homemaker’ TV series just torpedoes her efforts to appear ‘authentic’ in the homemaking space.

‘Why isn’t she releasing more recipes, focusing on ideas for a Christmas special, Instagramming about her brand and getting the brand out the door?

‘It seems so scattergun to say: ‘‘Hey, forget the edible flowers for a minute and listen to me talking about business,’ ’’ says the source.

Some even believe that Netflix has already privately indicated there won’t be any further With Love, Meghan series, hence the launch at this apparently inopportune moment of the Confessions of a Female Founder podcast. Netflix won’t comment on the deal, or its fate.

And what of Harry? His next big focus will be the Invictus Games, held in Birmingham in the summer of 2027. We can expect him back in the UK for a fairly extended period around that time. But, notably, that’s just over two years away.

Who knows what the ingredients in his domestic recipe will be by that point?