How much money did Harry inherit from Princess Diana? He and Meghan Markle had to support themselves post-Megxit
During a two-hour-long bombshell interview, Prince Harry also confirmed that they had been completely cut off, financially, after making the decision to step down as senior working royals last year on January 8, 2020. As a result, he said, he and Meghan Markle had to support themselves, which would have been impossible without the help of the inheritance he was left by his mother, Princess Diana, after her death in 1997.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex told interviewer Oprah Winfrey on Sunday, March 7, that shortly after their announcement to step back from their royal duties, the financial aid from the palace came to an end in "the first quarter of 2020." "But I've got what my mum left me, and without that, we would not have been able to do this," Harry continued. "Touching back on what you asked about what my mum would think of this, I think she saw it coming," he said. "I certainly felt her presence throughout this whole process."
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How much did Harry inherit from Princess Diana?
When Princess Diana's life came to a tragic end in 1997, Harry and William were teenagers. When she died, Diana was reportedly worth an estimated $31.5 million. This was owing to the fact that she walked away with around $22.5 million after her divorce was finalized with Charles. She also reportedly received a $600,000 salary, and over the next decade she boosted her own net worth. Although she left considerable amounts of wealth in the hands of several people who were close to her, for example, her butler, her sisters, mother, and her godchildren, the major chunk of her fortune went to her two sons.
Initially, there was a clause put in wherein the boys couldn’t touch the trust fund until they were each 25. However, Diana’s mother and sister, who were executors of the will, changed those terms after her death to make it so that Prince Harry and William could only collect the interest at 25 but couldn’t touch the actual money until they were 30. By the time sons’ 30th birthdays came around, they each received a total of $16 million.
Forced to make lucrative deals to pay for security
During the interview, Harry added that the couple initially "had no plan" to ink multi-million-dollar deals with "streamers" like Spotify and Netflix when they first quit the royal family. However, they were forced to find ways to make money when the royal family cut him off financially.
"That was suggested by somebody else by the point of where my family literally cut me off financially, and I had to afford security for us," Harry revealed, talking about their deals with the streaming giants - which are believed to be worth over $100 million. "During COVID, the suggestion by a friend was, 'What about streamers?'" Harry continued, while Meghan Markle added: "We genuinely hadn't thought about it before."
"We hadn't thought about it," Harry continued. "So, there were all sorts of different options. And look, from my perspective, all I needed was enough money to be able to pay for security to keep my family safe." For the record, it is not entirely true that Harry and Meghan Markle only had Princess Diana's inheritance to sustain themselves in the US. Harry was also the recipient of another multimillion-dollar royal inheritance that his great-grandmother, the Queen Mother, had left him and his brother, worth approximately around £14 million ($19.3 million), split between the two of them.
In fact, Harry received a larger share of this inheritance because it was certain that he wouldn't have access to a number of financial benefits that Prince William would receive once he became king. Markle herself had a small fortune stacked away -- to the tune of $5 million to her name, by the time she married Harry, thanks to her long-running role on 'Suits'.