Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have put on a united front in a brand new video set to their friend Chris Martin’s music to promote the work of their Archewell Foundation.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have spent recent months focussing on more solo charity and business ventures, rarely appearing together since their joint tour to Colombia over the summer.
But despite reports of a ‘professional separation’, they are front and centre of a new behind-the-scenes video of Archewell’s major moments of the past 12 months with Coldplay’s Sky Full of Stars as the soundtrack to the near-two minute film.
It shows the couple together at a number of events as well as Meghan cooking with women plus footage of their trips across the US and abroad – mainly together and sometimes apart.
Last night the Archewell Foundation released its annual report, which reveals that the Sussexes’ have partnered with US President Joe Biden’s daughter Ashley to create a wellness hub for women impacted by trauma in Philadelphia which pioneers a radical new type of therapy.
The charity’s US tax return for 2023 has also been published, which reveals income has reached $5.7million last year, mainly thanks to a mystery benefactor who gave $5million in a single donation plus $335,000 from five other individuals.
The Archewell Foundation handed out $1.3million in grants to good causes in the US and other parts of the world. Expenditure on other costs such as salaries, event costs, legal fees and travel was just under $2million in 2023.
Harry and Meghan are directors but do not get paid a salary. The charity’s tax return says they work a nominal one-hour-per-week, which according to People is ‘a standard practice for directors of US tax-exempt organisations’.
But the Sussexes’ right-hand man James Holt, a co-executive director, was paid a $228,500 salary plus $18,428 in benefits from January to December 2023.
Co-executive director Shauna Nep, who is also close to the royal couple, earned a salary of $272,241 plus additional benefits totaling $26,356. Communications manager Deesha Tank was paid $140,000 plus $7,100 in ‘other compensation’, according to the US tax filings.
The new report reveals they paid $155,000 to Herlihy Loughran. It is run by Beth Herlihy, a former actress who once played a stripper in UK teen soap opera Hollyoaks and has been a loyal worker for the Sussexes after she was laid off by Kensington Palace following Megxit.
Founded by Prince Harry and Meghan, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, the Archewell Foundation is now in its third full year of operation.
It has continued to grow its two signature programmes – The Archewell Foundation Parents’ Network and The Welcome Project.
Following a successful pilot, The Archewell Foundation Parents’ Network launched publicly in August 2024.
Its mission is to unite parents with first-hand experience of the dangers social media poses to children.
Launched in 2023, The Welcome Project continues to empower refugee women through women-led programming. There are currently 15 active Welcome Projects across the US that are fostering connection and belonging through a range of activities including sewing, art, hiking, swimming, photography, storytelling and cooking.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, who insisted that they would remain politically neutral in public ahead of the presidential election in November, are now connected with America’s First Daughter Ashley Biden, 43, albeit through a non-partisan initiative.
Their Archewell Foundation is a founding partner in Ashley Biden’s wellness hub which, among other things, treats women who have been victims of trauma with Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy – something Ashley herself credits with helping her process her brother Beau’s death.
Beau Biden tragically passed away at the age of 46 in 2015 after being diagnosed with an aggressive brain cancer, glioblastoma. His death is just one in a series of tragedies that have befallen the Biden family; with the president’s first wife Neilia (mother to Beau and Hunter) and one-year-old sister, Naomi, dying in a car accident in 1972.
Harry and Meghan’s support for Ashley’s centre was revealed in the foundation’s Impact Report for the 2023-2024 year, which was published on Monday and illustrates the Duke and Duchess’ philanthropic efforts through the organisation that they founded in 2020.
The foundation reportedly donated $250,000 to the Women’s Wellness (Spa)ce, ‘a mindfully designed drop-in wellness centre for women to congregate, create, educate, and meditate’, according to the Archewell Foundation’s 2023 tax records.
Based in north Philadelphia and created by Ashley, the space aims to ‘improve all aspects of wellbeing – mental, physical, spiritual, and financial – through healing ourselves, caring for one another, and acting on behalf of our communities’, a post on its Instagram page revealed.
In an interview with Elle in 2023, Ashley explained how she envisioned the space as a ‘drop-in space where women can eat a healthy meal, hit the treadmill or box, listen to guided meditation, and access therapies including EMDR and infrared saunas’.
Away from Archewell, Meghan is working hard on American Riviera Orchard amid trademark problems.
Having announced her new cooking and lifestyle business, American Riviera Orchard, with great fanfare back in March, the Duchess of Sussex began a search for a suitable Chief Executive Officer.
‘Meghan is interviewing candidates for the CEO role at the moment,’ a source told the Mail’s Richard Eden.
Despite having interviewed several candidates for the position, Prince Harry’s wife was unable to find anyone who matched her expectations.
Now, insiders say she has found the perfect candidate – herself.
‘She is the CEO of American Riviera Orchard,’ a ‘source in the know’ told the New York Post.
In April, a California-based source told me: ‘The initial CEO search has not panned out so far.’
I reported that the Duchess’s difficulties had led to an intriguing new development: she had begun negotiations with Netflix about the U.S. streaming giant entering into a commercial partnership with American Riviera Orchard.
‘This is something new for Netflix,’ the source told me. ‘It would run the lifestyle business with Meghan, developing products as spin-offs from her show. ‘If a partnership is agreed, it’s likely that Netflix would install its own CEO to run operations.’
Meghan is said to hope that American Riviera Orchard, which will focus on home, garden, food and lifestyle wares, will be highly lucrative.
Her lawyer has applied to trademark the brand in the U.S. for various goods, including cutlery, recipe books, tablecloths, napkins, jams, edible oils, vegetable and dairy-based spreads. The trademark application also appears to extend to a physical shop where items could be sold.
The Duchess, 43, unveiled the venture nine months ago by posting a glitzy video on Instagram in which she could be seen busying herself in a rustic-looking kitchen, arranging white and pink flowers and whisking something in a bowl.
She posted the video the day after I contacted her office for comment on her plans, which may have overshadowed an appearance by Harry, via video link, at an event that evening for the Diana Award, an organisation close to his heart.
