Buckingham Palace will launch investigation into Meghan Markle’s alleged bullying of royal aides
Buckingham Palace will investigate explosive claims Meghan Markle bullied royal staff, as a trailer for her upcoming Oprah Winfrey interview was savaged.
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Buckingham Palace will investigate explosive claims that Meghan bullied her staff when she was a working royal.
The probe was sparked following a detailed report in The Times of London newspaper, which claimed that staff were left “shaking” and were fearful at work.
An emailed complaint had been circulated but was not acted upon.
Meghan and Harry’s lawyers have called the article a smear campaign ahead of their interview with Oprah, to air in the United States on Sunday.
Buckingham Palace released a statement on Thursday morning Australian time, confirming the investigation.
“We are clearly very concerned about allegations in The Times following claims made by former staff of The Duke and Duchess of Sussex,” the statement said.
“Accordingly our HR team will look into the circumstances outlined in the article. Members of staff involved at the time, including those who have left the Household, will be invited to participate to see if lessons can be learned.
“The Royal Household has had a Dignity at Work policy in place for a number of years and does not and will not tolerate bullying or harassment in the workplace.”
It comes as the Duchess of Sussex faces allegations of bullying staff made by one of her closest advisers during her time at Kensington Palace.
A source claimed to The Timesthat Meghan Markle drove two personal assistants out of the household, and undermined the confidence of a third.
The bombshell claims – which have been denied by Meghan’s lawyers – came just days before Meghan, 39, and her husband Prince Harry, 36, give their “tell-all” interview to Oprah Winfrey.
A source came forward to London’s The Times after claiming only a partial version of Meghan’s two years working as a member of the royal family had emerged, The Sun reports.
It is claimed allegations of bullying at the palace were submitted by Jason Knauf in October 2018, who was the couple’s communications secretary at the time.
The allegations were raised to HR in a bid to get Buckingham Palace to protect the staff that Knauf alleged were coming under pressure from the Duchess.
A source told the newspaper that Prince Harry had pleaded with Knauf not to pursue the bullying allegations.
MEGHAN’S $800K PAYDAY
The British newspaper group that published Meghan Markle’s private letter to her father should pay interim legal costs following her high-profile privacy claim victory, a judge had ruled.
The Duchess of Sussex won her case against Associated Newspapers last month, after extracts of the 2018 letter were published.
The correspondence to her estranged father Thomas Markle was written a few months after she married Prince Harry, and asked him to stop talking to tabloids and making false claims about her in interviews.
At a remote hearing in London’s High Court today, judge Mark Warby ordered that Associated Newspapers to make an “interim payment” of £450,000 ($A803,000) to cover legal costs.
The figure stopped short of the £750,000 ($A1.3 million) requested by Meghan’s lawyer.
Following the ruling, lawyers for the publishers of the Mail On Sunday and MailOnline website indicated they would appeal.
Warby said he saw “no real prospect” of the Court of Appeal coming to a different conclusion but said the defendants had a “right to renew this application to a Court of Appeal judge”.
Meghan’s legal team had called for a front-page apology in the Mail On Sunday. Warby made an “order for publication and dissemination” but said it would be “more limited” than what had been asked for.
He also said he would not ask for Associated Newspapers to hand over any copies it had of the private letter at this stage.
Markle’s lawyers said they would be happy to accept nominal damages for misuse of private information at later hearings if the court ordered the newspaper group to make public its financial gains from the copyright infringement.
‘AT LEAST WE HAVE EACH OTHER’
The first look at Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s tell-all, “intimate” interview with Oprah Winfrey was savaged, with Harry comparing his wife to his late mother Princess Diana.
“My biggest concern was history repeating itself,” Harry told Winfrey in one of two bombshell trailers released yesterday.
“I’m just really relieved and happy to be sitting here talking to you with my wife by my side,” Harry said, holding Markle’s hand in the interview to air via US network CBS on March 7.
“I can’t begin to imagine what it must have been like for her (Diana), going through this process by herself all those years ago,” he said.
Prince Harry, 36, blamed press intrusion for contributing to his mother Princess Diana’s death in 1997.
“It’s been unbelievably tough for the two of us, but at least we have each other,” he said of his marriage to former Suits actor Meghan, 39.
With her hair in a loose updo, a pregnant Meghan wore a black Armani lotus-print dress and positioned her hand over her baby bump during the candid chat with Oprah. The Duchess of Sussex sported a bracelet once owned by Diana – the same one from which Meghan’s engagement ring was made.
Meantime, the Hollywood-style trailers were savaged by British commentator Piers Morgan, who criticised the couple’s “self-wallowing narcissism” and called the interview “extraordinarily arrogant”.
Morgan called the Duke and Duchess of Sussex “hypocrites” for complaining about being hounded by the press but also agreeing to the high-profile interview with Oprah.
An outspoken critic of Megan, Morgan said: “I’ve watched all this with increasing disdain and repeatedly ridiculed their obvious double standards and extraordinarily arrogant desire to want to have their privacy cake and eat it as they exploit their royal status for huge financial gain”.
“It really does take a staggering degree of self-wallowing narcissism,” he said.
Harry and Meghan faced criticism about the timing of the interview as Harry’s grandfather, Prince Philip, remains in a London hospital being treated for an infection.
Meantime, Oprah was accused of painting the Queen as a “mafia boss” after the teaser showed her dramatically asking the Duchess: “Were you silent, or were you silenced?”
While Meghan’s answer was not shown in the short clip, Winfrey also asked her if there was “a breaking point” which led the couple to “Megxit”.
Robert Jobson, a royal biographer, told The Sun that the trailer was “over the top, melodramatic nonsense”.
“The Queen and the Royal Family are not the Corleone family of Windsor,” Mr Jobson said, adding that “talk of being ‘silenced’ is just ridiculous”.
Harry and Meghan stunned the royal family with their decision to abandon their royal duties in January 2020 in a departure widely referred to as “Megxit”.
The couple, who are expecting their second child, have launched several legal cases against British tabloids alleging invasion of privacy, including a case that ended last month with a win against Associated Newspapers.
In an interview with James Corden last week, Harry last week revealed he and Meghan decided to leave the royal lifestyle because it was “toxic”.
“We all know what the British press can be like, and it was destroying my mental health,” he told the The Late Late Show host.
“I was, like, this is toxic. So I did what any husband and what any father would do. I need to get my family out of here,” said Harry, who relocated to the United States with Markle last year.
Harry also said he was more comfortable with the portrayal of the royal family on Netflix drama The Crown than he was with how they were written about in tabloids.
Last month, Buckingham Palace announced that the couple had permanently quit royal duties following a one-year review of the new arrangement, with Queen Elizabeth stripping them of their honorary titles and patronages.
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