Last year, the British tabloids latched onto this idea that the Duchess of Sussex was a “diva” and everyone hated her and the evidence used was a “high turnover” among staffers. It never made any sense, because there’s always a high turnover, no matter which royal figure you’re talking about. No one works for royalty to get rich or because it’s some great gig – people do it for the prestige of working for royalty, and the ability to parlay that prestige into a better paying gig after a few years. Prince Charles, Prince William, Duchess Kate, even the Queen – they all have high staff turnovers. I guess the Daily Mail is trying to make up to the Sussexes though, because they’re pointing out that Duchess Kate fired one of HER staffers rather suddenly:
The Duchess of Cambridge has made one of her most loyal aides redundant after the newlywed returned from her honeymoon. Sophie Agnew, 32, had worked for Kate for seven years and her role has been made redundant following the split of the Sussex and Cambridge households, Palace sources claim. Like Kate, Sophie is a St Andrews history of art graduate, and was put in charge of the Duchess’s personal assistants. She recently tied the knot to insurance company director Stuart Hill and the timing of the decision has created further unease.
‘Sophie worked so hard for Kate,’ one of her friends told the Daily Mail. ‘She loved her job and made a lot of sacrifices. The timing of the redundancy is said to have added to the disquiet. ‘Sophie has only just got married and returned from her honeymoon,’ the friend added.
The aide was spotted in 2016 carrying a Longchamp pilage bag and a suit cover, bearing William’s cipher, embroidered by British company The English Room, as the Cambridges arrived for their one-week tour of India and Bhutan. She also joined the couple on their 2014 trip to Australia and New Zealand and has regularly been spotted by Kate’s side.
The Duchess’s private secretary, Rebecca Deacon, quit in 2017. Often seen standing discreetly behind her royal boss during engagements, Miss Deacon played an important role during the Duke and Duchess’ wedding.
‘It is true that Sophie has left after seven years of service,’ a senior source confirmed. ‘Her role has been made redundant as a result of the split of the households. She will not be replaced.’
Rebecca Deacon was super-loyal and I think she just genuinely left to get married and start a family. I would find Sophie Agnew’s dismissal very questionable if Kate had done it under the presumption that Sophie was going to get pregnant soon as well – that would be pregnancy discrimination, which absolutely still happens. But… was that what really happened? I don’t know. It feels like the Sussexes and Cambridges have been shuffling their separate offices so much this year, it’s possible that Kate fired Sophie because she truly didn’t need her anymore, and the timing (post-honeymoon) was a coincidence. What IS clear is that Sophie must be kind of pissed that she was let go, thus the unnamed sources dishing to the Daily Mail.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
Positions usually become redundant when two companies merge. — not when they split.
Was Will playing with more than Roses?
That’s a dumbass thing to speculate about.
@Mina, Not on a gossip site is it a dumbass comment..
I found Aurora’s comment funny and LMAO.
Yeah, a gossip site for gossiping about famous people, not their private staff members.
Do you really not see how gross it is?
Mina is right. This is fabricated, baseless speculation about a newly married private citizen who’s just lost her job. I doubt very much she’d be voicing her displeasure like this if some tawdry affair had happened. Just because it’s a gossip site doesn’t mean you just get to make shit up about random people.
Stop hating women.
is it ?
Oh Jeez. I bet you’re great at parties. *eyeroll*
A balding, married father of three whose cute years are long gone….what would be the point….um…no.
I don’t think it is necessarily pointing the finger at Sophie as much as William and Kate. William gives me deep creep vibes like the kinda dude that thinks you should be flattered by his attention. And Kate seems so insecure that she would fire anyone William looked at too long. This smells of abuse of power to me.
Come on. Let’s not.
Lol, I think it’s funny! 😂
Whatever that might say about William, it’s pretty gross to toss that kind of speculation at a newlywed employee.
*raises hand*
I laughed.
Ha ha, good one Aurora!
I thought it was funny too. It’s not unheard of for women to either get rid of women who may appeal to their husbands, have appealed to their husbands or to surround themselves by women who won’t appeal to their husbands. Kate is human too. Perhaps she phased this one out just like she did Rose. Much easier than confronting the husband. Now that is what’s truly gross. Don’t you think? 😉
Oh hi, I’m here for the gossip and great word play….”playing with more than just Roses…” JACKPOT!
It seems she was head of the PAs and since there are less PAs now that the foundation has split, she’s just not needed
Although she’s tall, brunette and skinny so she may have been screwing Wills cause she’s his type
Why are there people in here accusing a random woman, who just got married, of sleeping with her married boss? It doesn’t make just Will look bad. Y’all should stop it, it’s pretty gross.
@Sofia & Aurora
Do you guys know how offensive you are being by accusing the woman of screwing William? Why does this narrative always follow women? I have been at the receiving end of this type of rumor and it’s extremely hurtful. Please do better.
The narrative follows William. He cheated on Kate for 10 years before the wedding. Plenty of speculation as to what he’s done after, including reporters admitting (and deleting the tweet) there was an affair with Hanbury but they were ordered (legally) to shut down news on it.
Yep. The internalized misogyny JUMPED OUT.
“Please do better…”?? Oh Lord. Please get over yourself. Doesn’t Will have quite the storied history of infidelity where his wife is concerned?
Yes he does. KP is handling this story as poorly as the Rose Hanbury one.
@Grant
Yes Grant do better. Speculating that a private citizen had an affair with her boss without a shred of evidence is gross.
@NOTASUGARHERE your misogyny on royal posts particularly those relating to Kate are legendary so carry on.
Being disgusted by Kate’s actions in no way equals hating all women.
Thank you, Lady D. Such an influx of Kate stans in the past week. Kaiser (or Rose or Sophie or Meghan) must be getting under their skin.
Will is a cheater who can’t keep it in his pants. He screwed rose who was a close part of their circle, I can totally see him going after employees he sees everyday.
What you’re insinuating about Kate’s staffer is over the line. Yes, we all know Will isn’t immune to cheating, but why drag Sophie Agnew down with him. Why would a woman getting married be cheating? It makes no sense.
Is it just me or are they subtly trying to make this the Sussex’s fault? Like Kate had to let her trusted aide go because there wasn’t work for her after the big bad Sussex’s left to start their own foundation. Says more about Kate and Will not having enough going on then anything …
That’s what I thought too, but I refrained from commenting because I thought maybe my tinfoil hat was too prominently placed on my head
After 7 years I’ll bet she has some serious info on how they all are… I do hope she spills
Too tinfoily, ya’ll think too much. Her position is no longer necessary since there are less PAs.
This. I like both Duchesses but they ARE blaming the Sussexes. Had they not split this poor newlywed would still have her job
Exactly. She worked solely for Kate, why would the Sussexes leaving affect her job or even be a factor?
Her job may have become redundant because Kate doesn’t work all that much to have more than one PA. That’s what the article should have said, and would have been accurate.
It shouldn’t. But that’s not going to stop the media from finding some angle to blame Meghan. Just like they blamed her for drought, famine and war for eating avocados. And just like they changed a headline from Princess Diana to ‘Meghan could have killed Charlotte during the royal wedding’ (because of some flowers in her bouquet…same flowers all royal brides including Kate used). The BM are really not concerned about accuracy or even the truth.
The split may have triggered a need for staff reconfigurations whereby new staff are required and others become superfluous.
It’s not just you because that’s what the article (or headline?) implied!! That she was fired due to the split of the the Sussexes leaving the ‘fab four’s’ foundation. They may have changed the article/headline now, but that was what was originally being reported. So, yes, they did still find a way to blame Meghan/M&H.
I saw the original article too when it first went up (Saturday?) and the headline did blame the Sussexes and then it had one throw away comment about them too and how THEY had split up the foundation and then there was just a lot of waffling and talking around the issue, which was weird.
I think the DM would just do anything to flair up the haters to get comments and then they change the story around.
I saw them do the same thing a few weeks ago when they reported on the wedding in Rome. They had a line about how the Sussexes flew back to London on a private plane, yet had no sources for that info. All the comments were giving out about the use of private jets and when I checked a while later the line in the article was gone. They must have hit their quota of awful comments.
No it’s not you. The article is worded to make it sound as though the Sussexes are responsible for her being let go. No mention is made about Kate being a mean boss or how callous the timing of her firing is etc. If Meghan had done this we’d sure be hearing about it though 🙄
That was my take as well. It’s M&H’s fault (the split) so that’s why there’s “extra” staff that is not needed now. My God, if MEG had fired someone, ESPECIALLY after “just coming back from a honeymoon”, there’d be screaming from the rafters about how unfeeling, Diva-ish, calculating (as to wait for her to come back first), etc.
Oh yeah…that is definitely in the subtext.
That is completely the inference imbedded in this article. It’s all Megan’s fault!! LOL
Sophie, if you want to snitch…girl, we are there for you in spirit
In the top pic her smile is manic. So difficult for her to look relaxed. Maybe it’s all the tea she must drink for the caffeine to keep her weight down. No sparkle whatsoever, but that’s also true of her husband. Private pleasures, public funds. They look so damn uncomfortable when they have to show themselves.
Everyone has the odd photo where they look a bit manic, but with Kate it’s such a consistent thing that I’m really curious about what she’s like to interact with. There are so many photos of her laughing uproariously when others around her are cracking a tiny smile etc.
I wonder whether she really exaggerates her expressions for the camera? Or to seem more engaged with the people she’s with?
The manic smile is a bizarre tendency.
I was thinking Kate is trying to hide the fact shes got sagging skin in her face.
But then I see shes got that fixed so now she does it automatically.
The more I pay attention to her the more iys clear she’s just not up the role of Queen Consort. I dont think 10-20 years is enough time to train her.
Ivanka smiles like a horse all the time, too (I realize that horses aren’t smiling, but I don’t know what the expression is called). I think it’s to look more animated/interesting in pics. Like a “WOO!” girl referred to in How I Met Your Mother.
But all you have to do is check other people’s reactions and you can see that neither Kate nor Ivanka is reacting normally.
My guess is that it’s nerves (this is coming from someone who’s something of an introvert herself). She doesn’t seem to be naturally at ease in public settings and crowds, so she overcompensates to make it seem like she’s comfortable. Cue the over the top grinning and toothy smiles.
Funny how those expressions don’t show up when she’s at movie premieres or with Ben Ainslie. It is only in situations where she’s called upon to pay attention to something serious and pretend to act like a grownup in an office setting.
I also wondered whether she wired on caffeine, but my guess was that she cannot be seen yawning in boredom (rather rhan using it to lose weight – althoigh I suppose that could be a reason as well). I also wonder if she’s on edge in public because she can’t smoke? Which woud explain her penchant for short engagements.
Sophie Agnew was Rebecca Deacon’s assistant & she hasn’t been seen with the Cambridges since 2017 around the time Rebecca left.
Shhh stop with your company logic, silly. This is obviously Rose 2.0 with a newly married woman. Or Kate is jealous. Or she’s discriminating.
So the BRF just pays for people to not work for two years? That seems incompetent because an extra two years of employment means additional severance to the terminated employee. It’s pretty unlikely that BRF lawyers are that stupid to let a situation like this linger on for 2 years.
And the timing of right after the honeymoon is mean. There was no reason for it.
They try to blame this on Harry and Meghan But it looks like Kate is the queen of « falling out » with tall and thin women around William.
Just have to add that I was reading old articles regarding Will and Kate to pass a lazy Sunday, and it was funny to me how Kate and William were pushing so hard for a full time life in Norfolk. For years. And now Turnip Toffs and rose gardens are a joke. That backfired.
‘It is true that Sophie has left after seven years of service,’ a senior source confirmed. ‘Her role has been made redundant as a result of the split of the households. She will not be replaced.’
I’m confused.If she had been around for 7 years, then she’s been around since before the ‘fab 4’. How could her departure be because of it?
It’s not. But they need some way to bring Meghan into it. 🙄
I wish they’d choose an excuse that made sense because firing her suddenly and right before a royal tour doesn’t add up.
Yeah, the contradictions are hard to ignore. Don’t think this was a friendly parting of ways.
My thoughts exactly. She was hired six years before Meg married Harry, yet the split from the foundation resulted in her being let go. Makes zero sense.
You can’t just make people redundant in the UK, you have to have watertight justifications otherwise a person can sue for wrongful dismissal (unless of course, they give you a pay-off of GBP70K and then it isn’t worth suing because that is the max you can get for wrongful dismissal). Blaming a redundancy on the split of households when a person’s job existed before there were 2 households, doesn’t seem like watertight grounds to me.
Dumped when returning from her honeymoon? That’s low. I wonder if Sophie is working on a tell all: Cambridge vs Sussex, Bill instructing the press to weaponize Bad Dad against Meghan, or Bill’s fondness of Rose gardens?
Maybe Bill traded in a 🌹 garden for a tulip garden? Who knows? Lol. And for all of you quick to defend anything involving the Cambridges, but believe everything when it comes to the Sussexes, pound sand.
She’ll have signed an air-tight NDO so don’t count on hearing any juicy bits about the Cambridge household from her.
They aren’t used in the UK as much as the US so I wouldn’t count on it. Plenty of former royal staffers have written books about their time with the royals and few if any have been sued. Already we have an article about this, which would normally go unnoticed except for avid royal watchers. I would be on the look out for what the media includes in their pleadings when they have to serve their defence to Meghan and Harry’s actions. I strongly suspect they will plead that they received information directly from royal sources as part of their defence.
Over on Daily Fail, several commenters were of course pinning this on Meghan. I just want to know why they hate her so much and what has she done that’s so wrong. Took a private jet? Big deal. 😡
Why does the dailymail hate Meghan? Because shes a biracial woman who won their top prize. Harry married her not some white English rose from a well to do family.
You’d think they could just be happy for him. He’s looked happier than I’ve ever seen him since he’s been with her. 🤷🏼♀️
There is something about Meghan that triggers miserable women’s insecurities. She’s incredibly attractive, looks a solid decade younger than her age, has lots of confidence and charisma, successful career, and seems pretty intelligent too. Add that she’s biracial and they are triple mad.she kind of has is all, so their hatred is their way of restoring equilibrium to the world. Kate on the other hand, was once very stunning but she has aged terribly, she’s not the sort of person you would look twice at in the street, so has no ambition to work, and seems to has zero passions in life. She seems boring rather than enigmatic. The reason so many miserable women love Kate is because they subconsciously know she’s not that impressive, so it makes them feel good about themselves. The fact a prince chose someone like Kate gives them hope, whereas Meghan make them feel like shit. Publicly the only thing kate is really a success at is having the ‘perfect marriage’ and yet we all know William is a cheater. That is why so many kate stans are desperate for harry to fancy Kate, they know harry is attracted to hot sexy women, and they are desperate to validate Kate’s sex appeal, as a way for validating their own.
February…think you hit several nails on the head! It appears some of these British ladies are not taking too well a smart, biracial attractive woman with sex appeal “stealing their prince.” Collectively, I don’t expect them to EVER get over that.
Lol.
She doesn’t have blonde hair and blue eyes, she has an African American mother, she is a former actress, she is American, she is very confident and highly intelligent, along with Harry she is making a big impact and consequently the charisma lacking Cambridge’s look insignificant ……..these are all things that they don’t like about her.
The narrative around this is far different than Rebecca Deacon so there is something unusual about it. There is no way this can be blamed for the foundation split though since she had been there for 7 years and suddenly this comes out just before a royal tour?
And if Kate did decide to get rid of her because she might get pregnant there would be a lawsuit against the BRF because it’s clearly discrimination. It’s doubtful this was done on that basis.
I would be more inclined to believe that she was the one leaking things to the media and with Harry’s lawsuit now out in public, they are getting rid of her when the media blames her for the leaks in the defence.
That was my thought as well. The royal staff jobs are pretty big on loyalty that works both ways. As in, you don’t fire someone after their honeymoon unless they’ve done something to make you angry. So, my guess is she was leaking info.
That’s what my tin foil hat theory tells me too. Maybe they set a trap and fed her false info and found the source of their leaks.
That theory – about her being the source of many of the leaks – makes sense. It would explain the sudden departure and why she doesnt seem happy about it (if she was told to leak the info?)
This. Are W&K trying cleanup on Aisle 5? If they get rid of their choice leaker, they’ll stand back and try to claim innocence.
It makes sense that she could be the fall girl. Harry’s lawsuit could expose wills shady dealings with the press. Will has been untouchable because he has the whole British media bought and paid for, but when it comes down to it, the press will thrown him under the bus to save themselves. Phone hacking is illegal and these editors could get jail time, so they may need to expose their source of information. Sophie may have been dealing with the press telling them what William wants. When Andrew Morton wrote Diana’s book, she collaborated with him via a third party, that way if she was ever asked whilst under oath whether she dealt with Morton first hand, she could legitimately deny that she did. Sophie was most likely just the ‘messenger’ but could get blamed for being the ‘leak’.
I’d buy this. Aren’t some details about the lawsuit coming out today? I wonder if that explains the timing. I’d be super pissed if I leaked at the behest of my employer and then was fired as a result of that. I hope (if this is the case) she finds some way of getting this information out.
This theory sounds like the most likely to me.
Yes, l think she is behind the leaks and they are quickly throwing her under the bus and thereby creating distance. Some people are saying that sections of the Palace are horrified by the law suit which may mean that they are worried about what may come out.
Honestly in my organization there are personal changes all the time. The only news is the media trying to blame the Sussexes.
Its a bit low to make someone’s job redundant when they come back from honeymoon, esp when the Cambridge’s have always made a big deal about loyalty.
This ‘restructuring’ is more of a bad reflection on the Cams as if they are moving staff off or getting rid of them it means that there is not enough work to justify the large household they have. Or their budget is being tightened.
My guess is that Sophie split after getting married.
After spending time with hubbs on Honeymoon she probably fux that shit. Being a glorified gopher picking up dry cleaning etc…
The article implies that Sophie is not happy about this but we likely can take that with a grain of salt. I imagine she was worked to the bone.
Why split hairs, the Palace said she was let go.
She work for the Cambridges for 7 yrs. they’re so dumb blaming a Foundation split.
Samantha Cohen officially retired from the Sussexs on Friday, a 6 months gig turned into an 18 months.
Rebecca Deacon basically left for that reason and it was never spun as her being redundant but that she wanted to move on. This article is pretty clear that Sophie was pushed out and it wasn’t her choice.
It does say a lot about work load though if they can let go of someone just before a royal tour, which should in theory be a very busy time.
Good point Nic919 – in which case I am guessing she was pushed out. If the Cambs are willing to go with a press release that effectively puts Sophie under the spot light in this way it heavily suggests that they had issues with Sophie.
It’s a pretty dirty thing to do when someone has worked for you for 7 years, but then again we don’t know why this happened.
Maybe she was leaking like a sieve and her being away on honeymoon exposed that….
Right, the article is clear her position was eliminated and someone (SA herself, or people around her) are pissed off enough to chatter about it. Deacon it was announced long in advance she would be leaving.
There were rumours that Deacon was being pushed out by Chuck who wanted to replace her (she was at the point she left Kate’s private sec) with someone more mature and experienced – after she left Catherine Quinn arrived (who is a Chuck hire).
Catherine Quinn’s presence has done very little to help Kate, l wonder how long she will stay.
I can not for the life of me figure out why someone with a history of art degree would want to be a glorified lady in waiting for Kate. Leaving is for the best.
I suspect that is the case with many of the royal employees. Overqualified for what’s required of them and probably better educated than the royals themselves.
There’s only so many gallery and university positions to go around, and there’s not much else you can do to utilize an art history degree.
Research, write, teach (high school), museum work, charity foundations? Relocate to another country with more opportunities? Shoot, maybe just a different city? Develop more skills–say, painting restoration, wood conservation?
Thank you beaniebean. Also, Kate take note of what you could have done during your waity years.
I know several people who work in municipal government and government with art history degrees in sections that focus on culture, and I even know one who works in art therapy. You can leverage an art history degree in non-traditional ways. Some also works in art and design libraries.
I imagine that the intention with a lot of these royal adjacent posts is that they’ll go to people with trust funds and established families who otherwise don’t need to work but want to do something to occupy the time with. Historically, a lot of these posts have been filled by people who come from aristocratic families but don’t have titles themselves. They’re well-connected in the sense that they mingle in aristocratic circles where everyone knows everyone else, and they can be “trusted.”
Nothing to do with the Sussex’s but trying to make it their fault specifically Meghan’s as per usual. Ridiculous but the timing is interesting. I wonder if it is true like other’s have speculated that she may have been leaking things to the press.
I also had the thought she might have been leaking info, but… I also think that her position changed after Rebecca left (I think Sophie was her assistant and in the running to be her replacement?) and she got shifted over to the Foundation staff. She hasn’t been seen publicly with the Cambridges since 2017 according to some of Kate fans on Twitter who track that sort of thing.
In terms of how it could involve the Sussexes… It could reflect the Cambridges losing some of their household operating budget once the Sussexes established an independent one (I do remember articles around that time claiming they were going for cost neutral with the budget in the splitting—if they aren’t sharing staff members anymore and you think in terms of employee salaries, the Cambridges might have had to lose someone for the Sussexes to gain someone), or even cost cutting to reflect that Foundation money (present or future) went with the Sussexes.
I guess it could be a tit-for-tat from the Sussexes after the articles about Kate being a better boss and more loyal to her staff popped up earlier this month. Or, on a more tin hatty path, that recent Tom Sykes piece’s claims the Sussexes might see more staff quit in the near future made me wonder for a hot second if this story was pushed out to diffuse those potential future stories.
With the foundation splitting and some of them following the Sussexes, it does not make sense that there would be less work at the Cambridge foundation. There would in fact be more work for Sophie since some of the other foundation staff left.
Besides the timing is harsh and there is no way to excuse that.
I’m not talking about workloads so much as operating budgets. I was reading the other day about charity spending and how people want to donate to the cause and not necessarily the salaries of the people who work there. Someone please correct me if I’ve got this wrong, but the RF has to use specific donation money (unrestricted funds) to pay its people and operating costs. Some of those unrestricted funds might have gone toward setting up the Sussexes’ foundation, leaving the RF with a smaller operating budget in the meantime.
Also, if she was managing PAs at the RF and then half of those people left to work for the Sussex Foundation… those people won’t be replaced and it might not have made sense to have someone overseeing half the amount of people.
I thought the staff for the foundation and the household were separate?
@ Blue36 – I’m just making a guess that she moved from working in the household to the foundation after Rebecca left based on the fact she stopped being seen on engagements. I don’t have any proof to back it up–it’s just speculation. 🙂
“their household operating budget” “losing part of their household operating budget”? No, W&K’s operating budget for their part of the Household would not be impacted. Sophie never worked for Harry, never worked for Meghan. Some staff worked for W&K, some for Harry and then for Harry and Meghan. Sophie’s position would not be impacted by the Household change.
The new Household is being funded by both Charles (Duchy) and the Queen (Sovereign Grant). Whether they are aiming for cost neutrality or not, there was new money made available from the Queen to help make the new Household. Multiple staff chose to leave with Harry and Meghan, so there goes the Meghan the evil boss trope.
W&K removed this person from their staff, by their own choice and clearly not by hers.
But it must be reported in such a way as to make William and Kate blameless 🙄
“No, W&K’s operating budget for their part of the Household would not be impacted” How do you know that for sure, though? None of the royal finances or reports are ever that clear LOL
And how can you be certain that certain employees didn’t support ALL of them at the RF? They obviously have some people dedicated to them and their projects individually, but I’d be shocked if that was true for the whole RF. Like I said, I’m just speculating that her position/role changed after Rebecca left and that she moved from working in the household to the RF. If nothing else, the post-split press implied some restructuring within the RF.
No one is saying Kate is blameless in this–the timing of the firing was pretty crappy, all around. And I’m absolutely not saying Meghan is an evil boss, because I don’t think she is. In fact, I’m not even saying they played a direct role in her being fired, just that there are reasons why the split might have driven staff changes. Sophie might have expected Kate to always have her back and take care of her, even as her role changed, and that’s where the hurt is coming from.
Sophie worked for Kate heading up Kate’s PA’s. Right there in the article. She worked for Kate, not for Harry, not for Meghan. The Household split was funded by both HM and Charles, meaning extra money was made available for Harry and Meghan’s Household via the Sovereign Grant.
This woman has been gotten rid of by W&K, nothing to do with Meghan, not for budget reasons, or she wouldn’t be running to the Fail and telling her story.
Considering how really professional these two royals think of themselves, surely this could have been handled better. But we have observed the clumsy footedness of these two before.
Hopefully he hires a team to keep progressing if he’s not personally interested..
The part that cracked me up is that this woman’s job was to be in charge of Kate’s personal assistants. Plural. How many does she need?!? She doesn’t do anything!
And yes the tone of the Fail was, the redundancy was created by the separation of the households/foundations, which was Meghan’s fault. Ridiculous. Plus, usually it’s mergers tear create redundancies, not splits.
Just wrote something about this below – that’s exactly the feel it has! This article is definitely not making up to the Sussexes. It’s blaming Kate firing an employee on them.
The split with H&M occurred months ago, it’s just the paperwork that was finalized more recently. I doubt it would have taken them this long to figure out they did not need this person. I think she made Kate mad somehow, probably with the leaks like others have said. Maybe she was the source of the Rose leaks or the Botox leaks or whatever. But yeah, low blow to try and involve the Sussexes.
I thought I saw a longer article, which mentioned she became “redundant” after the split with the Sussexes – maybe I was reading into it with a certain viewpoint because that’s what these reporters do, but it seemed to be making the connection that because the Sussexes are the worst and made the split happen, it’s really their fault that Kate had to fire her assistant. So, just something else to lay at Meghan’s feet. Poor Cambridges can’t keep their staff because Meghan is mean *eyeroll
I replied with the same thing down thread. There was a longer article and it was definitely making it seem as if the split caused her departure.
The original article was longer but has since been re-edited.
Since we all know what an “Art History” degree from St. Andrews is worth, I can’t blame Kate for firing this woman. Also, jobs like that are usually “at will” which really means “at whim” – so I don’t see how anyone could expect job security.
Employment law applies to people employed by the BRF. They may get paid poorly but there is no exemption in terms of proper termination notice or severance pay.
I don’t know how much notice this person received, or how much severance pay, if any. But the article seems to complaint about the termination itself (not the amount of severance pay or notice), so that’s what I was commenting on.
The BRF has a long history of long term employment for people – some people have been there decades. It may pay badly but from what i’ve read the perks are pretty good – good pension contributions, good holiday allowances, flexible working etc.. Its well known that The Queen values her long term employee’s – they get long service awards/medals. She’s a good employer and thats one of the reason why people stay, not just for the prestige.
This article was cleaned up significantly since it was initially published. The original article began with a dig at Meghan having the title as the “Duchess of Difficult” and made it clear (vice inferring) that this employees’ firing was the Sussex’s fault. Not sure why it got cleaned up but the verbiage changed completely. Just a bizarrely timed article and so weirdly worded. It does show that the Cambridges are back in the bore sight of media for negative press now that they can’t attack Meghan.
Better than firing just before the wedding. But seriously the lady may have decided to put her marriage before the job which may have involved lots of travelling she no longer wanted to do. But, of course, that wouldn’t suit the narrative.
The narrative being put out by her (Sophie’s) friends is she was gotten rid of against her will. See Nic919 on post 16.
Allegedly put out by her friends!
LOL. This article is in no way favorable to W&K, fails at blaming Meghan, but in the end reads as what it is. An unhappy former employee using media leaks to get back at the people (W&K) who got rid of her.
It can’t really be against her will because working for the RoyalFamily doesn’t mean the employee has job security. It’s not a steady job, most of them seem to leave after they have put in x amount of years. Then they use the prestige & connections for a better job someplace else. But this woman was an assistant? Not *the* assistant, but one of many. In all the pics she looks like a lackey, trailing behind them with their stuff, she is replaceable. Unfortunate but the truth. Maybe she was leaking? No one really knows.
UK employment law applies to royal staffers. This means that after having worked with them for seven years she needs to have been provided proper notice of termination or else she had to be provided severance pay in lieu. Using the common law case law on this issue, this would be up to seven months of pay, so this is not a cheap decision. Had she quit, then the story would have played like Rebecca Deacon, who confirmed herself that she was leaving and it wasn’t done with a disgruntled article in the DM. No one voluntarily announces they were terminated for being redundant if they actually decided to quit. That doesn’t help for any future job prospects. The lack of logic to defend the Cambridges here is astounding.
@Nic919 – I would also add that under UK employment law there should be a consultation period for any type of redundancy (I have experienced both – voluntary and mandatory) and by law they have to give you notice that your job is at risk. It depends on how they did it – to me it seems she came back from her honeymoon, was told her job was at risk then boom, she’s out (and it can be done very quickly – happened to me within a space of just less than 2 weeks).
She likely got a month’s salary for every year she was there, notice period, plus holidays, bonus’s etc.. She would have gotten a nice little package to go away. On top of that any redundancy package under £30k is tax free.
The passive aggressive snark in the article is telling – something went down. Harry’s lawsuit has gotten someone worried – as Kate’s PA she will know where the bodies are. It adds fuel to the gossip fire that the negative leaks about Meghan was coming from Kate/Carole. Why suddenly dump someone who has been loyal??
Kate has landed in Pakistan and the Diana cosplaying is on full display. She has copied a Diana outfit right down to the colour scheme (pale blue). Check the Fail online front page.
Am sure its the first of many bespoke Catherine Walker outfits she’s had made.
Wearing her late MILs signature designer, using the same exact designs because the designer has been dead for 10 years. Doesn’t get much creepier.
Let go right before a major and important royal tour. I am intrigued and of course trying to blame Meghan is typical at this point.
The new keener Kate only wants top of the line people, heavy hitters. An old friend can only take you so far, really disgusting how their bringing Meg’s name into this though.
Hmm Kate’s face shape seem to have gone from squarish to more trianglish, I wonder if she did that jaw slimming botox that’s big among celebrities at the moment.
I’ve noticed a uptick of negative Kate articles in the various news sites recently.
Should be interesting to watch
Kate looked ethereal stepping off the plane in that blue dress today. Royalling done to perfection!!! She’s a vision. Anyone know the designer for that dress??
Catherine Walker. And she’s getting criticism for wearing essentially Pakistani cosplay rather than having an actual Pakistani designer create an outfit.
Yeah how hard is it to wear a designer from the actual country. It’s insulting that she is wearing pretend Pakistani clothing instead of the real thing.
Especially since “fashion” is her only input on this trip.
Yep, she only went with Pakistani-made accessories–earrings and clutch.
Even better, she’s specifically cosplaying Diana (again).
Imagine lacking a personality to that extent?
As written above, Walker passed away a decade ago. There is no designer reinterpreting things, her widower is remaking things from the old patterns.
She is in a stunningly beautiful outfit.
Kate’s Art History Degree should be RESPECTED. It opens doors in a very PRESTIGIOUS FIELD.
Imagine using an Art History Degree to get a dream job at The Getty, The Met, MOMA, The Broad, or LACMA. Have you seen the endowments some of these art museums have? My understanding is The Getty has a $10 billion dollar endowment! This is a big industry.
Michael Govan runs LACMA and has an Art History Degree. He has done some incredible work in LA and is HUGELY respected. There’s been a lot of wonderful articles written about him. Read up about him.
So why is an Art History Degree not respected? The Arts are SO important.
Ok is this a joke comment?
It’s not the degree, it’s the fact she never did ANYTHING with it.
Her degree obviously was just a means to a end, and it’s a easier degree to get.
I have multiple degrees, one of which was a B.A. in Art. I got it while I was getting a degree in a science field, because I love art.
But it was most definitely the more lightweight degree.
If she had EVER worked in the field in ANY way, people would respect her. But she didn’t, she used going to university to get close to William.
What CairinaCat said. Not only did Kate not use her degree, neither did this assistant, Sophie. For better or for worse, it seems to be the default degree for posh young women.
I don’t think we should demean or diminish the academic accomplishments of any woman, including Kate (or Meghan for that matter). Women are so lucky to be able to complete a degree. My grandma’s generation was not so lucky.
It’s also a slippery slope to say that one degree is better than another. For example, should a woman who got into Medical School look down on a Science degree as a more lightweight option? How does that comparison help women? Shouldn’t we be lifting each other up?
I’m thrilled when ANY woman completes ANY degree. Congratulations for completing YOUR degree! That’s awesome.
Personally I think an Art History Degree has tremendous value and opens up some exciting job opportunities in a multi-billion dollar industry. “Lightweight” is not a word I would associate with the Art World. It’s an incredibly exciting industry with some highly intelligent, thoughtful people. Remember Brad Pitt’s female friend Neri Oxman? She’s a great example of what women are doing in the Art World.
As to Kate’s choices about how she chooses to spend her time post-degree, it’s not my business. I know women who have completed Law Degrees who have given it all up to raise kids. I don’t judge them. I know women who have completed Law Degrees who then spent the next 5 years traveling around the world for fun. Once again I don’t judge them.
By the way…how lucky are we to be part of a generation that has so many choices.
She only chose Art History because that’s what the Palace announced William was going to study. Like they announced the Chile year and Florence year, Kate signed up for them, then William defaulted. If William had announced Geography from the beginning, we would have had years of “Kate loves maps”.