Meghan's wealth has soared over the past few years (Image: Getty)
Meghan Markle celebrates her 43rd birthday on Sunday (August 4), her fourth birthday since exiting the Royal Family with Prince Harry.
But the former Suits actress' net worth continues to soar alongside her husband. As a key player in the legal drama, Meghan was already a financial powerhouse, earning a reported £40,000 per episode.
In 2010, she collected an extra £280,000 from her roles in the movies Remember Me and The Candidate. It was a huge improvement on the £625 per show she earned when she was a “briefcase girl” on the US edition of Deal or No Deal.
Adding to her earning power, before meeting and marryingHarry, Meghan had amassed around three million Instagram followers eager for updates on her regular yoga classes, healthy diet and lifestyle and her beagle, Guy.
That social media power gave her access to various commercial endorsem*nts that took her average annual earnings to around £350,000. Access to her own social media accounts was one of the things she sacrificed when she married Harry.
Meghan's first high-profile job was on the popular quiz (Image: Getty)
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Before her marriage, Meghan’s estimated net worth was in the region of $5million (£3.8m). Her new husband, Prince Harry, was considerably better-off. In 2018, he was reported to be worth somewhere between $30million and $40 million. As long as he lived in the UK, he was also receiving a generous regular income from the Duchy of Cornwall.
But that came to an end after the couple’s controversial departure form the UK, with the New York Times reporting in February 2021: “They do not draw income from the Duchy of Cornwall, as they did before they left Britain.”
Meghan's life changed out of all recognition the day she married into the Royal Family (Image: Getty)
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Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's Oprah interview shocked the world (Image: Reuters)
Meghan and Harry confirmed the change during their notorious tell-all interview with Oprah Winfrey a few months later, saying that they were “cut off” from the family’s finances and were living on Harry’s inheritance from Princess Diana.
But now, after lucrative media deals with the likes of Netflix and Spotify, the Duke and duch*ess of Sussex are worth over 10 times Meghan’s reported pre-marriage wealth. Even so, with a collective net worth of and estimated £46million, they are significantly worse off than neighbours Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry and don’t even nab a spot on the annual Sunday Times Rich List. On that, last-placed entry Sir Lewis Hamilton clocks up an impressive £350m.
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Meghan and Harry's wealth has soared in recent years (Image: Getty)
Nevertheless, that wealth puts Meghan and Harry in what the US Wealth Advsors’ Trust Company calls the perfect “Goldilocks Zone” of wealth. The zone means there is no fear of ever falling into poverty but without the massive stress of truly stratospheric wealth.
They explain how a fortune of around £39m- $50m (£39m) - $60m (£46m) "gives anyone the flexibility, anonymity, and freedom to do whatever you want today and make plans for tomorrow (e.g., future generations) as easy as it gets. You can hang with billionaires (e.g., charity giving, vacations, dinners, vacations, etc.) without their stress".
Certainly Harry and Meghan count a number of billionaires among their friends. But although they're often the poorest people at that party, it’s that £46m fortune that’s enabled the Sussexes to splash out on their enviable Montecito mansion, with its nine bedrooms and 16 bathrooms. At first, Meghan once admitted, she didn’t think they could afford it.
“We were looking in this area and this house kept popping up online in searches,” she explained.
Prince Harry wants to give Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet ' a normal childhood' (Image: Getty)
But at first, Meghan explained, it seemed like an impossible dream. She continued: “We didn’t have jobs, so we just were not going to come and see this house. It wasn’t possible.
"It’s like when I was younger and you’re window shopping — it’s like ‘I don’t want to go and look at all the things that I can’t afford. That doesn’t feel good’.”
But after closing their Netflix and Spotify deals, the couple felt like Montecito could become a reality. The bought the property, which features a private pool, tennis court, tea house, rose garden, olive trees, children's cottage, and a two-bed guest house, and plan to use it as a stable base to give their two kids, Archie Harrison and Lilibet Diana, “as normal a life as possible”.
