Prince Harry, Meghan Markle's Montecito neighbours doubt couple's motives

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex relocated to California in 2020 after they stepped back from their royal duties.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's neighbours in Montecito, Santa Barbara, California are starting to question the couple's motives behind their revelations about the royal family.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex live among celebrities and other affluent locals including the likes of Oprah Winfrey, Ellen DeGeneres, couple Orlando Bloom and Katy Perry, and Gwyneth Paltrow, to name a few. But the royal couple is raising eyebrows across the neighbourhood as they continue to release more controversial material in their Netflix series and with the duke's recent promotional interviews for his memoir "Spare."

According to reporter Martha Kelner of Sky News, "as the TV and book deals mount up, neighbours are beginning to question the motives behind their media offensive." She went around the Montecito neighbourhood asking residents what they think about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's ceaseless revelations about the British royal family.

One man simply wondered, "Why are they doing this?" while a former female television executive shared that her friends are starting to tire of the couple's antics and said, "My friends turn their nose up at it all. People hear they get a $100m contract with Netflix."

She claimed that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle made their deal with Netflix and Spotify for the sake of their staff. She said, "They are making that money, it's not theirs. It's for their company and their staff. So I'm sure it's partly due to a lifestyle they want, and so an element of all this will be them thinking 'what can we sell.'"

However, another neighbour finds everything going on with the royal couple intriguing and said the "story is interesting because it keeps evolving. It's he said, she said. It makes great television."

Meanwhile, when asked whether the American people are on Prince Harry or Meghan Markle's side, another Montecito local said, "My observation is that most women are on Meghan's side. Most men are just wondering why are they doing this?"

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle stepped back from their royal duties in January 2020 and have since become financially independent from the royal family. They launched their own non-profit organisation Archewell Foundation and signed multi-million dollar deals with Netflix and Spotify.