Meghan Markle has come a long way from her early days as the “suitcase girl” on Deal or No Deal and is now worth tens of millions of dollars. Meghan Markle’s fortune continues to grow along with her husband, Prince Harry

Meghan Markle’s fortune soars

Meghan Markle celebrates her 43rd birthday on Sunday (August 4), her fourth birthday since leaving the British Royal Family with Prince Harry.

But the Suits actress’ fortune has continued to grow alongside her husband’s. As a key character in the legal drama, Meghan was already a “financial queen”, earning a whopping £40,000 per episode before she met Harry.

In 2010, she earned a further £280,000 from her roles in Remember Me and The Candidate, a huge improvement on her £625-per-episode earnings as a “suitcase girl” on the US version of Deal or No Deal.

The power of social media and commercial contracts

Before meeting and marrying Prince Harry, Meghan had around three million followers on Instagram, eagerly awaiting updates on her yoga classes, healthy diet and lifestyle with her beagle, Guy.

Her social media presence has helped her land a number of commercial deals, taking her annual income to around £350,000. Access to her personal social media accounts was one of the things she sacrificed when marrying Prince Harry.

Property before and after marriage

Before their marriage, Meghan’s estimated fortune was around $5 million (£3.8 million – equivalent to VND122 billion). Meanwhile, Prince Harry has a much larger fortune. In 2018, his fortune was reported to be between $30 million and $40 million (VND1 trillion). While living in the UK, he also received a regular income from the Duchy of Cornwall.

But that ended after the couple controversially left the UK, with the New York Times reporting in February 2021 that: “They do not receive the income from the Duchy of Cornwall that they did before they left the UK.”

Life changed completely after leaving the royal family

Meghan and Harry confirmed the change in a famous interview with Oprah Winfrey months later, saying they were “cut off” from the family’s finances and were living off Harry’s inheritance from Princess Diana.

But now, after lucrative media deals with the likes of Netflix and Spotify, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are worth more than ten times what Meghan was before their marriage. But with a joint fortune estimated at £46 million, they are still far behind neighbours like Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry and don’t even feature in the Sunday Times’ annual UK Rich List, where Sir Lewis Hamilton comes in last with an impressive £350 million fortune.

Assets at the level of “no need to think” about money

Regardless, the fortune puts Meghan and Harry in the “Goldilocks Zone” of Wealth Advisors’ Trust Company in the US. This zone means there is no fear of falling into poverty but also no terrible pressure of huge assets.

The firm explains that a fortune of between $39m (£39m) and $50m (£60m) “allows anyone the flexibility, anonymity and freedom to do whatever you want today and plan for tomorrow (e.g. future generations) as easily as possible. You can socialise with billionaires (e.g. charity, holidays, dinners, vacations etc.) without their pressure.”

Also thought “buying a house” was out of reach

Harry and Meghan certainly have plenty of billionaires among their friends. Although they were often the poorest people at the party, it was this £46 million fortune that helped the Sussexes pay for their dream Montecito mansion, with nine bedrooms and 16 bathrooms. Meghan has admitted that she initially didn’t think they could afford it.

“We searched the area and this house kept popping up in online searches,” she shared.

But at first, Meghan explained, it seemed like an impossible dream. “We didn’t have jobs, so we weren’t going to go see this house,” she continued. “It just wasn’t possible.

“It’s like when you’re a kid and you go shopping in a supermarket – like ‘I don’t want to go looking at all these things that I can’t buy. That’s not fun.’

But after signing deals with Netflix and Spotify, the couple felt that owning a mansion in Montecito could become a reality. They bought the property, which includes a private pool, tennis court, tea house, rose garden, olive trees, nursery and two-bedroom guest house, and planned to use it as a stable base to give their two children, Archie Harrison and Lilibet Diana, “as normal a life as possible”.