CONTROVERSY: Taylor Swift has taken a side after declining Meghan Markle’s invitation to appear on her podcast on……….See More

Taylor Swift declined an invitation to appear on Meghan Markle’s now-canceled Spotify podcast. According to The Wall Street Journal, the invitation was personally extended by Meghan. It comes after Spotify and the Sussexes’ production company said they “agreed to part ways.”

Taylor Swift turned down the chance to appear on Meghan Markle’s Spotify podcast, despite the Duchess of Sussex personally extending the invite, The Wall Street Journal reported. The claim came as part of a widely reported feature about her and Prince Harry’s attempts to break into Hollywood after stepping back from royal life.

Citing people familiar with the matter, the report stated that Meghan worked with Spotify’s Gimlet unit to come up with a list of potential guests for her podcast after she and Prince Harry signed a deal with the streaming service worth about $20 million in 2020. The report says that Meghan wrote a personal letter inviting the “Midnights” singer to come onto her podcast, but Swift declined through a representative.

Representatives for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and Swift did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider, made outside of normal working hours. “Archetypes” debuted in August 2022 and featured a number of high-profile guests such Serena Williams, Mariah Carey, and Paris Hilton. Over the course of 12 episodes, Meghan and her guests discussed some of the stereotypes facing women.
After its debut, “Archetypes” quickly shot to the top of Spotify’s charts in the US, Canada, UK, Australia.

But Spotify and Archewell, the Sussexes’ production company, later announced they’d “mutually agreed to part ways” in a joint statement. “The podcast will no longer be produced at Spotify as we are mutually parting ways,” a representative for Archewell Audio told Insider. It’s unclear yet whether there are plans to continue producing the show for another platform.

Since then, speculation has been rife as to why the Sussexes and Spotify ended their partnership, although the news did come amid a downturn in the tech and media sectors, as well lay offs at Spotify earlier this year.

Spotify said its second round of job cuts in June was part of a “strategic realignment” of its podcast division. There have also been reports that the Sussexes were not producing enough content for the audio-streaming service. A day after the announcement, the company’s head of podcast innovation and monetization called the couple “grifters” on his podcast.