It seems the Americans are belatedly waking up to the reality of the Sussexes. Bill Simmons, Spotify’s head of podcast innovation and monetisation, has finally cottoned on to the fact that Harry and Meghan aren’t exactly model Stakhanovite grafters. He has this week come out and attacked them as ‘fucking grifters’, after their £15.6m Archetypes podcast deal with Spotify was unceremoniously canned. The Wall Street Journal reports that the couple may not have met the productivity requirements to get the full payout. How will they cope?

Now it’s all over: not a moment too soon

You can see why Simmons is angry: the pair really embraced ‘quiet quitting’. The Duke and Duchess of the Sussex signed on for the podcast in 2020; the first episode didn’t appear until two years later. In fairness, there was a lot of Oprah, Netflix, and moaning to get on with in the meantime. And when the couple did get around to Archetypes, it didn’t look much look like two years’ of thought had gone into it. Just 12 episodes appeared, mainly consisting of Meghan musing on such riveting topics as ‘stigma’, ‘activism’ and ‘manifesting’. Star guests included failed funny man Trevor Noah and, er, Justin Trudeau’s wife. Truly, they weren’t bringing their best.

And now it’s all over: not a moment too soon. Simmons said yesterday that Archetypes should have been called:

the f***ing grifters. That’s the podcast we should have launched with them. I’ve got to get drunk one night and tell the story of the Zoom I had with Harry to try and help him with a podcast idea. It’s one of my best stories.

Sounds spicy. Mr S applauds Bill Simmons return to the side of reason: if he wants to speak his truth, he’s welcome on Spectator TV anytime…

A spokesman for Archewell Productions said: ‘The team behind Archetypes remain proud of the podcast they created at Spotify.’