Parnell: Whether Snow White or Evil Queen, Meghan clap-back only calling for the truth

While every boss can be Snow White to some employees and the Evil Queen to others, the latest clap-back from the Sussex PR team has only served to make us want to know the truth, writes Kerry Parnell.

Good boss/bad boss? Angel or arsehole? That’s the question being posed in Montecito, as Meghan and Harry fight back against recent negative press.

So, is Meghan someone who “gives clear direction and is solution-oriented”, as Team Sussex told US Weekly, or, “a dictator who terrifies employees and reduced grown men to tears”, as The Hollywood Reporter claimed?

Now, while every boss has good and bad days and can be both Snow White to some employees and the Evil Queen to others, the latest clap-back from the Sussex PR team has only served to make us want to know the truth.

Stories have been swirling about Meghan being a demanding boss for years, after the British press reported Palace insiders dubbed her “Duchess Difficult”. Then, in 2021, Buckingham Palace launched an investigation into bullying, after allegations Meghan had driven out two personal assistants through her behaviour. The subsequent findings were not made public.

Harry and Meghan, meanwhile, countered it was she who was bullied, with the prince calling the rumours “a work of fiction” in his autobiography, Spare.

Stories have been swirling about Meghan being a demanding boss for years. Picture: Raul Arboleda/AFP

But if the pair thought all that was behind them, the rumours followed them to the US and, this month, The Hollywood Reporter ran an excoriating news piece titled, Why Hollywood Keeps Quitting on Harry and Meghan. One source told the publication, “Everyone’s terrified of Meghan,” as she “belittles people, doesn’t take advice” and is described as marching around, “like a dictator in high heels, fuming and barking orders”.

A staff member said, “I’ve watched her reduce grown men to tears.”

It was swiftly followed, this week, by a cover story in US Weekly, titled, The Truth about Meghan: Her staff break their silence. Five former and current staff members gushed about how great the pair are, saying, Harry and Meghan, “watered the seeds” for their staff “to flourish” and regularly gifted them “top-notch” hand-me-down baby items and baskets of “fresh flowers, fresh fruit, fresh eggs”. Cracking.

Now, I’m not into Meghan-bashing, and I don’t know what the truth is, but it’s not likely to be both descriptions at the same time.

I wouldn’t like to receive emails at 5am, even if her current staff explain her email signature reads “My working day may not be your working day. Please do not feel obliged to reply to this email outside your normal working hours”. Might I suggest she uses the “schedule email” tool, instead, going forward?

I’ve experienced bosses who loved a dawn email, meaning I’d spend my journey into work in a cold sweat, plus one who liked a weekend call to discuss work. I stopped answering after a while, later saying I’d left my phone at home. If she’s reading this, I never did, I was staring at it, while it rang out. You’re welcome.

Anna Wintour knows how to be bad, with bells on. Picture: Arnold Jerocki/Getty Images

Whatever the truth – whether Meghan is tolerant or tyrannical, marvellous or merciless – I would advise she remains above all the tittle-tattle. After all, Anna Wintour has made minions quake in her wake her whole career, and when Lauren Weisberger penned The Devil Wears Prada, famously said she, “cannot remember who that girl is”.

Now that’s how to be bad, with bells on.

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Originally published as Parnell: Whether Snow White or Evil Queen, Meghan clap-back only calling for the truth