Netflix chief content officer Bela Bajaria on Wednesday batted down reporting that the streamer has been distancing itself from Meghan Markle and Prince Harry.
“I might say don’t imagine whatever you read,” she said about a recent story in Variety reporting on Netflix’s “falling out” with the Montecito-based couple. “Perhaps we should always all do a bit of fact-checking. But here’s the thing: We still have a relationship with them, we now have movies in development with them, we now have an incredible doc with them, they’ve things in development on the TV and film side.”
Bajaria added, “Deals come and go on a regular basis and… we don’t renew so many deals and people don’t get as much press for obvious reasons, I suppose. So there’s no juicy story there.”
Bajaria made the remarks on the Next on Netflix presentation of the streamer’s upcoming slate, which spotlighted projects like Ben Affleck’s upcoming film Animals and the second season of Beef (but nothing from the previous royals).
The comments weren’t surprising, provided that Netflix vociferously responded to the Variety piece, with a spokesperson telling the publication that it’s “absolutely inaccurate” that the streamer had run out of enthusiasm for the couple and their Archewell Productions. Variety and The Hollywood Reporter are owned by the identical parent company, Penske Media Corporation.
But it surely’s clear that the streamer has been disentangling themselves from business deals with the couple over the past yr or so. On March 6, Netflix announced that it was exiting Markle’s lifestyle brand As Ever as a business partner. The moved followed Netflix downgrading the couple’s wealthy overall deal to a first-look deal in August 2025 after the corporate had produced the documentary Harry & Meghan and unscripted series Polo and With Love, Meghan.
Not long after the news of Netflix’s exit from As Ever broke, the Variety feature story reported the corporate was getting fed up with the cumulatively poor track record of the couple’s shows, their communication style and “bedside manner.” One Netflix insider told Variety, “The mood within the constructing is ‘We’re done.’”
The publication even reported that Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, a neighbor of the couple’s in Montecito, had grown bored with the pair. Two sources told the magazine that Sarandos said he wouldn’t get on a recent call with Markle unless a lawyer was present, and it was unclear whether he was joking or not. A Netflix spokesperson called that “absolutely inaccurate.”