Prince Harry Denies That A Planned Charity Event Was Thwarted Due To Netflix Deal & Conflict Of Interest

Prince Harry has issued a legal complaint against a British newspaper that reported that a planned charity event was canceled due to a possible conflict of interest with his and Meghan Markle’s Netflix deal, Yahoo News U.K. wrote.

The Duke of Sussex has, for years, been the patron of the Invictus Games, a sporting competition for men and women wounded in duty in the armed forces. As such, he intended to hold a fundraising concert for an upcoming iteration of the Games to be held in Los Angeles in 2021 and streamed on Amazon Prime.

However, British newspaper The Sunday Times claimed this week that the fundraiser was canceled, due to the fact that it would appear on a streaming service that competes with Netflix, with whom Harry and his wife have signed a multi-year deal.

According to Harry, that is not true. In a legal complaint sent to the newspaper, he claimed that there is no link to the cancellation of the concert and his Netflix deal.

In a statement, an Invictus spokesperson said that the concert was shelved for a much more practical reason.

“The primary revenue generator was ticket sales from a live concert in Los Angeles in the spring of 2021. Given current circumstances with COVID, the event needed to be reconceptualized,” the spokesperson noted.

Further, they pointed out that the decision to cancel was made before the Duke and Duchess of Sussex had inked their Netflix deal and that Prince Harry is still committed to the games.

When Harry was still officially a member of the royal family and living in the United Kingdom, he generally let inaccurate reporting about him or his ventures slide, owing to the monarchy’s tradition of generally staying out of press coverage about them.

However, now that he and Meghan have resigned as senior members of the family and have moved to the U.S., he appears to be taking a more active role in protecting his brand. He is currently a party to multiple lawsuits involving The Sun, The Mirror and the defunct News of the World over alleged phone hacking.

Meghan, for her part, is also involved in litigation with the press, including a complaint against Splash News and Pictures agency for allegedly taking unauthorized photos of her and the couple’s son, Archie, as they walked in Canada.

The couple’s Netflix deal is reported to include documentaries, scripted series and children’s programming. They reportedly already have at least two projects underway.