Meghan Markle and Prince Harry flash smiles, hold hands in public amid ‘flop era’

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry seemed to be unbothered as they stepped out in Santa Barbara, Calif., after parting ways with Spotify.

The couple was all smiles as they held hands while exiting an office building together Friday. The two were accompanied by a man who appeared to be a bodyguard.

The Duchess of SusSєx, 41, wore a white ʙuттon-up tucked into brown shorts. She completed her look with a white hat, sunglᴀsses and layered bracelets.

Meanwhile, Prince Harry was dressed casually in a polo shirt paired with a baseball cap and shades. The outing comes weeks after Spotify axed its $20 million deal with the royals after just one season of Markle’s podcast, “Archetypes.”

Questions have also been raised about the future of their $100 million partnership with Netflix.

The duke and duchess have reportedly blamed their failures — which Rolling Stone has dubbed their “flop era” — on a string of external bad luck. “The word is that they think they’ve been really unlucky,” a source told the Daily Mail Saturday.

The source claimed that the couple have pointed to COVID-19, economic downturns and the ill health and subsequent deaths of Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth II for their struggles to make way in the private sector.

The pair announced that they would be stepping away from their royal duties in January 2020, months before the world went into lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Over a year later, they sat down for an explosive interview with Oprah Winfrey in March 2021 and spoke openly about their unhappiness within the royal family.

The following month, Prince Philip died at age 99. Markle launched her podcast “Archetypes” in August 2022, but it was overshadowed by the death of Queen Elizabeth II the following month.

Despite high ratings for the podcast, Spotify’s deal with the couple has since imploded.

An insider told The New York Post earlier this month that the two had not created enough content to receive their full $20 million payout.

Additionally, Harry reportedly left Spotify execs puzzled when he pitched a series of podcast ideas that included interviewing Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump about their childhood traumas.

In June, Spotify exec Bill Simmons slammed Meghan and Harry as “lazy” and “f—king grifters.”

United Talent Agency CEO Jeremy Zimmer also called the “Suits” alum “untalented,” even though sources claimed several of his agents tried to sign her.

“Just because you’re famous doesn’t make you great at something,” he said of the former actress during the 2023 Cannes Lions festival.

However, the couple’s production company, Archewell Productions, reportedly has a few upcoming projects in the works with Netflix.

Page Six exclusively revealed that Harry is planning to travel to Africa solo for a new documentary.

The pair’s first docuseries, “Meghan & Harry,” debuted on Netflix in December 2022.