MEG-A BUCKS
‘Security obsessed’ Harry & Meghan ‘don’t want smaller mansion despite Montecito life costing $20m a year’, experts say
The royal couple's income streams could be drying up fast, it is feared
THE Duke and Duchess of Sussex are still "obsessed with security" and don't want to live in a smaller house, despite living in pricey Montecito, experts have said.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle moved into their £12million nine-bedroom, 7.4-acre, 18,671-square-foot Montecito mansion in July 2020, where they live with their four-year-old son, Archie, and their two-year-old daughter, Lili.
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Discussing reports about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s finances, The Sun's Royal Editor Matt Wilkinson told : “They’ve got huge outgoings, security, mortgage, everything.
"When I’ve spoken to people out there, they’ve said they are obsessed with security, [and] they don’t want to live in a smaller house, they absolutely love the house.
"I think they had a $9 million dollar (£7m) mortgage when they took it out that they still had to pay, and [Harry’s] had his money from Spotify, he’s had his money from Netflix.
"There is a worry behind the walls of Buckingham Palace of what happens when the money runs out … [and whether] he will at some stage have to find more money from other outlets.”
Royal expert Katie Nicholl added: “I was speaking to someone in Montecito who said you can’t live in Montecito the way they’re living without it costing about $20million dollars (£15.6million) a year.”
The couple are estimated to spend £3million a year on round-the-clock security.
They employ a string of private security guards at their Montecito pile and work closely with LA-based security experts TorchStone, using Christopher Sanchez, who was former US President Barack Obama’s ex bodyguard, as well as Christopher Keenan, who protected Hillary Clinton.
However, their income streams could be fast drying up, it is feared, with their $100million Netflix deal due to expire next year and Meghan's animated series Pearl cancelled by Netflix while in development.
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The royal couple lived in Canada for a few months and even resided in their friend Tyler Perry's LA mansion, before settling on Montecito.
But they've never publicly spoken about their reasons for moving to the community in Santa Barbara, which is loved by A list stars - including Oprah Winfrey, Katy Perry, Orlando Bloom, Ariana Grande.
However, in biography Finding Freedom, royal experts Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand suggest that the area was suggested to them by several of their famous friends.
An epilogue claims that Oprah Winfrey had recommended Santa Barbara to them as a "perfect place to raise a family, specifically Montecito, where houses sat within double-gated communities for maximum privacy yet were close enough to the amenities of civilisation when needed."
This episode of The Royal Beat will be available from 2 February on True Royalty TV.
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