Meghan exposé rocks Hollywood

A dozen people have contributed to a bombshell new report that labels the Duchess of Sussex as “just terrible” and “a dictator in high heels”.

There are stories and there are Stories. There are the pieces that eddy and flow in the royal tides and tributaries of l’internet and disappear into the tide and then there are those that land with a cacophonic thud, sending up dust clouds visible from space.

This weekend, we got one of these Stories, an exposé from the ultimate entertainment industry bible, The Hollywood Reporter, which would have to be the most devastating bit of reporting about Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex in years, if not ever. It’s hard to know which particular detail or line is the most scathing. “Everyone’s terrified of Meghan,” a source close to the duke and duchess told the Reporter.

Meghan Markle’s staff are reportedly “terrified” of her. Photo: Raul ARBOLEDA / AFP.

“She belittles people, she doesn’t take advice. They’re both poor decision-makers, they change their minds frequently. Harry is a very, very charming person — no airs at all — but he’s very much an enabler. And she’s just terrible.”

“She’s absolutely relentless,” a source has said. “She marches around like a dictator in high heels, fuming and barking orders. I’ve watched her reduce grown men to tears.”

“Just terrible”; “Everyone’s terrified of Meghan”; ‘Reduces grown men to tears.” : These are not lines that can easily be spun by a sweating Sussex-ite stuck on damage control on the phone to People and who is idly wondering if you can overdose on ashwagandha.

Of course, there has been negative coverage of the only-briefly-on-the-royal-clock duchess in the past but previously it was relatively easy for the Sussexes to write these off as the work of that nasty of nasties, the pasty, doughy British press and their natural inclination towards the malignant, the biased and the misogynist. (Queen Victoria would be so proud.) For years, on podcasts, on TV and in Harry’s Spare, the couple has passionately prosecuted the case that they were (and are) victims of an establishment and of a press deeply threatened by the arrival of a dynamic, biracial duchess. When UK outlets have presented unflattering claims about the couple, it was all further proof of Palace plotting and press prejudice, see.

It had previously been claimed that the couple’s behaviouPhoto: ANDRES CASTILLA / Colombian Vice-Presidency / AFP.

In March 2021, the Times’ seasoned and long standing Valentine Low broke the explosive news that a formal bullying complaint had been made against Meghan, the couple immediately countered arguing the revelations were part of “a calculated smear campaign” ahead of their Oprah interview and their Palace demolition derby. (Low alleged their communications secretary had labelled the Sussexes’ behaviour towards staff as “totally unacceptable,” that “young women, were being bullied to the point of tears,” that there “were a lot of broken people, that one staffer was “completely destroyed”, and that Harry and Meghan “outrageous bullies”.)

This time around, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have no such obvious or easy recourse and can’t retreat to the moral high ground, nor can they easily dismiss this as just another example of pernicious British forces out to bring the far-too-caring couple down a peg or three. With this Reporter story, none of these go-tos are an option. For two people not averse to sending out legal letters and who have, in the past, sued with a certain gladiatorial zest or who are not averse to spin, spin, spinning, what is a real surprise is the final line from the piece and which yells at volume: “Harry and Meghan’s current spokesperson declined to comment.”

(Please note the really stinging use of “current” in that sentence too.) Nor can the Sussexes lump this Reporter story on some solitary disgruntled former employee who was performance managed out of Montecito After not knowing being able to recite three Maya Angelous quotes on demand. Maer Roshan, the Reporter’s editor-in-chief no less, told Access Hollywood that a “a dozen people”, “who have worked very closely with the couple” both previously and yes, currently, were interviewed for the story. (Just imagine the stony silence and thick, thick tension of the Archewell Monday morning WIP meeting today …)

Markle’s chief-of-staff Josh Ketler quit after just three months on the job. Picture: Instagram.

You can’t massage the message if it’s coming from more people than it takes to play five-a- side football. Hell, even the very first sentence of the piece revives, like a Zombified corpse, the damning name used by former staffers who have worked for Meghan and husband Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex. The quitting of their latest chief-of-staff Josh Kettler, after only three months in the job and on the eve of their replica ‘royal’ tour of Colombia in August, makes him the latest member of the “ever-expanding ‘Sussex Survivors Club’ as some former employees have taken to calling themselves.” (Meetings on alternate Wednesdays, don’t forget to check the biscuit roster.)

The club might need to start looking into sourcing more chairs. Senior staffers who have parted ways with the Sussexes in recent years include Toya Holness, their global press secretary, Christine Weil Schirmer, who was their PR head, Samantha Cohen, who had been the duchess’ private secretary, Catherine St-Laurent, former head of the Archewell Foundation, Mandana Dayani, former Archewell COO, Ben Browning, one-time content chief (and the man who got their Netflix series made “before bolting”, per the Reporter, and marketing chief Fara Taylor.

The release of the Reporter’s bombshell could not have been more painfully timed. On Sunday Harry turned 40-years-old, marking the day with statements released to BBC and People. (The choice of those two particular outlets so perfectly encapsulates the lonely one- man DMZ that Harry now occupies; a stateless duke who is neither quite British fish nor American fowl.)

Harry turned 40 over the weekend, but his celebrations are likely to be marred by the latest claims. Photo: RAUL ARBOLEDA / AFP.

Rather than this past weekend serving as a bright spot for the Sussex’s PR-wise, with King Charles and the Prince and Princess of Wales’ wishing the duke a happy birthday and with reports that Meghan had gifted Harry a mini break with old friends, (conveniently rebutting recent reporting the duke has lost more UK friends than a proselytising vegan at a barbeque) we got the most damaging bit of reporting about the Sussexes since there was a demagogue-lite getting fake tan on the Resolute Desk.

Instead of Harry and Meghan being able to bask in the glow of being acknowledged by the official royal social media channels today, even if the whole thing was about as personal and meaningful as a hastily proffered servo greeting card, the duchess is being like a matcha- sipping Mussolini in Manolos. This framing of the Duchess of Sussex as somewhat tyrannical will do the couple’s careers no favours as they fast approach their impending professional crossroads. The Sussex prospects and star are not what they were when Meghan turned 40 herself in 2021. Now that they are done with their royal sabre-rattling endeavours, will Netflix renew their contract? Will American Rivera Orchard even actually be launched? Will people actually fork out for royal adjacent jam?

At the time of writing, 48-hours after the release of the Reporter story, Harry and Meghan have still not commented nor have any of the outlets usually sympathetic towards them rallied to their case. If there is one thing though that none of us should ever lose sight of in all of this it’s that bit of Wildean genius perpetually, tiresomely applicable to writing about the royal family: “The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”

Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.