The Duke and Duchess of Sussex were quiet during the Duchess of Cambridge’s Keen Birthday Week. Which irritated the crap out of the royal reporters, who were desperate to write “Meghan steals Kate’s birthday thunder” stories. Instead, they were left writing ridiculous stories about water conservation in California and how Meghan and Harry probably aren’t allowed to water their grass? While parts of California are in a drought right now, that’s nothing new and I’ve seen people (on Twitter) say that Montecito isn’t even being affected. Basically, Camilla Tominey was so desperate to say Meghan and Harry’s name on Kate’s birthday, she wrote up a big, stupid and wrong article about their LAWN.
Meanwhile, there was one piece of notable news a few days ago. Remember Amol Rajan’s BBC special, The Princes and the Press? The BBC went ahead with the podcast series about the issues within the special, and Meghan’s lawyer Jenny Afia spoke to Rajan once again:
The Duchess of Sussex’s lawyer has said that the term bullying is used “very, very casually” and can be damaging for “career women”.
Jenny Afia, the head of legal at Schillings – the law firm which represented Meghan Markle in recent court wins against Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) – said allegations of bullying against the Duchess do not “match my experience of her”. During an episode of the BBC’s Harry, Meghan and the Media podcast, host Amol Rajan asked Afia if the claims of bullying were true.
“No, absolutely not. And I think first thing is to be really clear about what bullying is,” she said. “So the term gets used very, very casually. My daughter called me a bully last week when I asked her to brush her teeth – she’s seven years old. It’s a very very damaging term as we know, particularly I think, for career women. What bullying actually means is improperly using power repeatedly and deliberately to hurt someone, physically or emotionally.”
Afia said the Duchess “absolutely denies” ever bullying anyone, adding: “Knowing her as I do, I can’t believe she would ever do that. I wasn’t there at the time, but it just doesn’t match my experience of her at all and I’ve seen her [at] very, very stressful times. So that story is absolutely untrue that she is a bully – that said, she wouldn’t want to negate anyone’s personal experiences.”
The details of Buckingham Palace’s investigation are yet to be disclosed.
Exactly. Afia is wording this carefully, but what she’s saying is dead on. Personally, I don’t have any doubt that certain people FELT “bullied,” in the sense that they felt inadequate, ill-equipped to work with a bright woman, and uncomfortable with Meghan’s American directness. They felt “attacked” by Meghan’s very presence, that much has been clear from the very start. But being uncomfortable with your own incompetence, your own laziness, your own inability to be direct (or deal with someone who is direct) is not the same as “being bullied.” Palace staffers are simply hoping that their vague dog whistles about working women, women of color and Americans will pull them through.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid.
I think that’s a great point. I’ve been embarrassed and humiliated in a meeting when I did not prepare, and it was evident in front of everyone. That wasn’t me being bullied though, it was me not doing my job. My boss didn’t harp on it, she just said ok lets move on, and next week Dee you can get back to us on XYZ, in addition to ABC. It didn’t stop me from wanting to bury my head in my shirt, or even being a little teary at my desk. Those were real honest feelings, but I wasn’t bullied, I experienced consequences.
This. Or like when your boss talks to you about leaving someone on hold for too long. It was mildly annoying, but not even close to bullying. I just needed to remember to check back in with the caller while resolving their issue.
Gotta refresh those holds! I literally had to coach a new agent on that today 😂
Kaiser, you’re absolutely right. Given that the Cambridges rarely went to the office, having this black American actress come into office everyday expecting things to done would make the KP staff feel like they were bullied. I wish this would come out in the report about apparently actual acts of so-called bullying are not being investigated, only how HR handled the complaints.
I’ll add that what Jenny Afia said is the truth and I wonder what Meghan will do when the report of the investigation comes out?
There is were the complaints converted to bullying claims. Knauf did not want the fact that the office staff are incompetent and/or lazy, he wanted to twist the facts into bullying allegations. We have heard and seen through the voice of all of Meghans patronages that she worked with were fully supportive and loved her involvement during her entire tenure, as well as Harry. All of her patronages were sad to see her go and those that she maintained relationships with are all the better for it. Though Meghan is in the US, she hasn’t forgotten of her duties on Salty Island and they all sigh an enormous relief knowing that Meghan will stick by their sides. Unlike other patronages that have suffered and shuttered their doors.
We must ALL remember that the Bitter Brother, and his sticky fingers, were attempting to steal from Meghans Grenfell Tower as well, which instigated Knauf to push the bully accusations as well, on top of everything else. What a slimy scumbag and douche.
Being asked to actually do your job, be competent at your job, or show up more than once a month to your job is NOT bullying, unless you are used to working for that sack of lazy, useless, inbred, trash in tiaras.
In their minds they probably thought serving her was NOT their job. What Meghan wanted/needed was substantially more than what the Cambridge’s wanted/needed. They knew they weren’t up to the task and whined about it to anyone who would listen.
Yep. That this is true is shown by the fact that the staffers involved refused to back up Whatshisname’s allegations when it became an HR situation. People were venting and blowing off steam, not actually being serious.
And to all the people saying no one should do this, because it’s “unprofessional.” Humans are social animals. This sort of discussion is how group norms are set and social bonds developed. Americans in general usually have trouble adapting to European workplace norms. Add race and everything else that was going on and normal workplace BS got turned into years of actual bullying on the woman who was complained about. This is on the people who took it to the media, not the underlings trying to figure out how to deal with a new boss.
The articles quoted more than one “source” so not just JK. There were articles quoting “sources” that detailed all the nasty things that the staff said about M also. Normal to complain about a boss. Not acceptable: coming up with racist names or remarks and running to the media with them. In a normal company, official action would have been taken against those employees. A professional might complain about a boss but anyone being held accountable would make inquiries of the boss or another supervisor about how to improve to keep a job. These staff members knew they didn’t have to do that.
that is absolutely what I assume all of that “bullying” crap is about. A bunch of high society nepotism babies got “jobs” as palace aides, knowing that it wasn’t actually supposed to be a real, actual job, because god knows that’s what Kensington Palace had been for years just dealing with the Cambridges while Harry partnered with or developed outside organizations when he actually wanted to accomplish something real, but Meghan came in expecting a professional office staffed with competent professionals and probably treated aides like they were meant to, you know, aide her in her role and work. The stress and humiliation they felt didn’t come from Meghan bullying them, but from them being faced with their own incompetence and lack of qualifications to do the work inherent in their actual job titles when Meghan would make professional requests.
Omid said pretty much that exact same thing once – that having a meeting every day or week can seem like a lot when you were used to one meeting a month.
Add to that, they were probably pressured by the Cambridge’s via Jason Knauf to stonewall and slow walk all of Meghan’s projects with the hopes that she would just give up. Instead, like Harry, Meghan went outside of them and successfully accomplished her projects anyways. And they probably got read the riot act for not successfully stopping Meghan. I’m sure they were pulling their hair out.
@Snuffles: Bingo! The press complained that Meghan went outside of KP to do her projects but I think she did that because not only was KP staff incompetent but in often cases they refused to do what she asked. I never thought about Harry in this but I think this is why he took Invictus Games out of the Royal Foundation. He knew he wasn’t going to get the support from the KP staff for it to be successful.
He did Sentebale outside of KP also.
I understand that there is likely a lot of culture shock at play here. When I moved to a new country and started a job here I didn’t read or understand other people well, and I honestly hated my superiors mostly because I didn’t understand how they jived or how to respond to them. I didn’t “get” them.
But you’ve got to be one weak and troubled person to start libel and accuse someone of bullying. Me thinks there is a whole nother level of intentional smearing and jeopardizing at play here.
The queen needs to call off this investigation. Pronto.
No, a full investigation needs to be done by an outside entity. With Schillings given full access to the report. Harry and Meghan are out trying to earn a living; simply ending this investigation without proving Meghan never bullied anyone? That will negatively-impact Meghan’s global reputation forever.
I hope Meghan wins big.
Not only that, Notasugarhere, but there needs to be investigations into all other complaints or stories of misconduct against current royals. Including Charles and others, like those who have pushed staff down, or called them names, or employed staff members who called others racist names (Charles). The “investigations” shouldn’t be selective nor, given the fact that people can act funny when a royal does something wrong, should they ignore incidents alleged to have happened in the news but not written up as formal “complaints” against the others. I mean, since they are “very much not quite a racist family” and say that they care about misconduct.
That’s a great response from her and something that bugs me in general about conversations about “bullying.” Someone being mean to you CAN be bullying, its not necessarily or always bullying. My son getting into a verbal tiff with another kid at school is not bullying (again it CAN be, but not always.) Even IF Meghan did snap at Melissa whatever her name was once, that’s not bullying.
I really think the bullying allegations, starting when they first surfaced in late 2018, were always something cooked up by Knauf and William and I imagine Charles is TICKED that they were brought up again before the interview, because now they have to do something about it. Or at least pretend to do something. If they had just let sleeping dogs lie, and not run to Valentine Low last march, this wouldn’t be the issue that it is.
I think Melissa T, the long-time Knauf friend, was a deliberate plant to try to make a mess of the wedding. Someone Knauf thought he could count on to falsely claim bullying to destroy Meghan’s reputation.
Like I’ve said before, these aides who are aristo/aristo adjacent were probably mad they had to work instead of flipping through the pages of Tatler. So when Meghan expected them to work and treated them like competent staff, they got upset and couldn’t handle it. Hence the accusations of her being a bully.
It can not only be missapplied, but used to reverse the roles in a situation. TI thought it was bullying when women from all racial and ethnic backgrounds were calling him out for sexism and promoting virginity testing. He also tried to make queer people out to be the oppressors for calling out homophobia directed at other people. In each situation, he was both improperly using power to hurt people, and enabling others to do the same. There’s been a lot of desperation to reverse the roles and make Meghan the bully for talking about her experiences, and Piers Morgan definitely an example of that too.
The times reporter admitted on the Harry, Meghan and the press podcast that Oprah was a factor in the bullying claims coming out. Jason’s email in October 2018 was probably for insurance once it was decided to drive Meghan out via the smear campaign. Even in her msgs to Jason she was super polite & deferential to him. unlike with William, there weren’t consistent reports of her apprehending staff (as we are seeing with Kate’s bday profiles) nor were there any reports of bullying once she was in BP. The maths isn’t adding up.
The rota told us in 2018 that KP staff had all types of nasty names for Meghan & how annoying it was to do things for and answer to this US actress. They clearly didn’t respect her & were leaking up a storm then. so hard to believe when it was operation takedown of Meghan with the making KATE cry story & duchess difficult stories in 2018 that they neglected to mention these bullying claims. We all know Meghan wasn’t protected by the firm even then and at that point the worst they could come up with as examples of being demanding was early morning emails & sending 5-6 work messages daily. I think the examples of ‘bullying’ would probably be seen as a joke by the public which is why the palace doesn’t want to be transparent with its review.
The fact they didn’t want to work for her probably hastened the split but also why Meghan started using outside help for her projects.
If the bullying investigation just addresses the HR procedures and not the validity of the bullying claims, what can Meghan do? She can get her lawyers involved and I hope she does. At the same time, as more time goes by, Meghan will continue to earn a reputation with the people she works with now. Already the fact that it was only at KP that she was called a bully will continue to stand out even more.
Good point!
She also has worked a long time before KP and never a whisper of her being a bully, quite the opposite. Everyone has said she was delightful pre-Harry.
Meghan reached the age of 38 without a bullying claim against her, when KP or which ever lame Palace did, no one came out of the woodwork, to support those claims.
With Ellen and Michelle Lee, they could not get out of the woodwork fast enough, because it was a pattern with them.
You can believe Meghan will sue, it’s gloves off.
After a while Meghan realized they were vipers and trusted none of them.
Refused to use the Queen’s Drs. and lawyers, turned out to be smart decisions.
Do you mean Lea Michele?
KP knew what they were doing with the bullying allegations. They were weaponizing the “angry black woman” trope to cover for inadequate, incompetent, racist workers in the KP office. These people never expected to actually have to work for Meghan. They thought they’d half ass it like they do for William & Kate and that would be enough. When Meghan expected them to do their jobs, then they felt uncomfortable and pressured. They didn’t like the black woman telling them how to do their jobs and they revolted like the petty simpletons they work for.
Agree with others here that expecting your staff to do their job and holding them accountable is not bullying. The staff bitching and moaning are not necessarily formal complaints, and the fact that the language used against Meghan in leaked stories ( degree wife, damaged goods, Me-Gain etc) show that something is definitely wrong with the work atmosphere at KP and it wasn’t Meghan. Also, once they left KP and moved to Windsor, we never heard of anything negative coming from their royal staff at BP. General comment here but with stuff like the desperate lawn story ( Tominey came after some posters who criticized this dumb story in DMs) and Piers Morgan threatening her again, there is something weird going on over there. Agree the Rota were pissed they couldn’t use any Sussex news against them this week. Maybe the birthday didn’t get the traction they expected, and every article inserted Meghan into it. I mean the portraits got a lot of discussion and will be displayed but what exactly are you supposed to do with that after the reveal? I just detect more anger directed at Meghan for staying out of the way this past week. She was probably just getting back into work and trying to avoid Omicron like the rest of us, but the press keeps going at her.
“Basically, Camilla Tominey was so desperate to say Meghan and Harry’s name on Kate’s birthday, she wrote up a big, stupid and wrong article about their LAWN.”
The Sussex’s lawn generates more interest than the Keen birthday.
Grass growing is more interesting than Kate Keening.
Sarah Vine and Amanda Platell wrote articles on this in the Fail taking the angle that Meghan wasn’t a bona fide career woman as prior to marrying Harry she was third rate actress?! I emailed both to ask them what they thought of Kate’s CV as she only had one part time job in her life. Amanda Platell coined the dismissive Waity Katy but doesn’t like to be reminded of the fact.
How can she be a 3rd rate actress if she was one of lead on a long running successful show that is still being played in syndication and she is still getting earnings for? That 3rd rate actor was able to work with UN Women and be World Vision ambassador, do USO tours and start a successful lifestyle blog from that little cable job. She was able to bank $5 million in earnings from the “ 3rd rate” gig and it secured the mortgage there house and its 19 bathrooms. That statement shows their ignorance and bitterness more than anything, and how they have to continuously Meghan down to build up the other duchess. Not everyone is at the top of the A list, especially women and women of colo, but M was a well regarded actor who had a really good gig. Suits also wasn’t her first series and there are a lot of Fringe fans out there. I don’t know why they keep at this angle. Everyone knows who she is now.
Sarah Vine and Amanda Platell are just two of those rota clowns who are kiss-ass to the Cambridges. Meghan is way above them all. And this is what makes them boil.
How long do they need to investigate a bullying allegation involving a handful of people. That fact that a year out they have not wrapped up this investigation shows that they have nothing. Whatever general statement they were hoping to make to get out of this is not being accepted by Meghan and her lawyers.
There’s a paper trail of the name calling of both Meghan and Harry. These people were emboldened to go to the press and call a Prince of the United Kingdom and his wife all kind of names. If they were being bullied they would have told of the specific bullying incidences.
The best way for them to end this is to tell the truth. Investigation found no incidents of bullying by the Duchess of Sussex. And if they want they can publish their new guidelines and procedures to address complaints by place staffs going forward.
The British monarch seems allergic to the truth. The need to hide stuff and gaslight people should stop. It may have worked before social media and before everything became global, it doesn’t work anymore.
Seriously, this allegedly happened in 2018 and they still haven’t wrapped it up. It’s all BS and now that M’s lawyers are on it and demanding accountability , they can’t just throw anything out there. They’d rather drag it out for another 10years and stick to nasty innuendos.
I blame Harry for putting Meghan in that toxic environment. If he had separated from KP and had created his own foundation, his own office, and his staff, etc.… these things would not have happened. Also, note that they only accused Meghan of bullying, but not their white prince.
Maybe he just did not realize how really awful his brother could be. In retrospect, had he known what he knows now, he would have made the move to get away from Will’s office when Will started giving him unwanted advice about “slowing down” with Meghan. I do think though william would still have done the same exact thing, even if Harry moved out of his office sooner,because he IMO does not like getting his own way.
Right. Of AAAALLLLL the people who fabricated lies, and mistreated Meghan, and ignored mistreatment against Meghan — Harry is to blame. Sure. I’m always suspicious when people ignore that Charles and the queen failed to do anything, even issuing a statement in support of Meghan, and William and his shrew actually cooperating with the press to malign Meghan, but these people say that Harry, of all people, is to blame.
Oh, please. Harry was a working royal, he was required to be under one of the palaces. When he turned 18, they should have moved him to BP, but Charles and William were against it and pushed back. QEII and Charles did show a bit of spine eventually, paying to move Harry and Meghan away from KP and giving them a Household under BP.
I haven’t yet finished this podcast series, but what has come through for me so far is how inflexible the palaces seem to be in terms of how they do things, and also how they all pull in different directions and work against each other, especially KP.
My own read has always been that the KP staff resented Meghan and made it clear they wouldn’t take direction from her and didn’t respect her. Indeed, I remember some quotes about Meghan swooping in and thinking she could just do things her own way, thought she didn’t need gold standard advice and could use her own contacts and resources (turns out that she could, in fact, do that). I imagine there was some initial shock to staffers who had never been asked to do actual work, but it’s still surprising to me how many of the people who worked for Meghan seemed to react to her ambition by immediately moving to put her in her place and tamp down her work ethic, rather than trying as hard as they could to attach themselves to a rising star, which is what I think most people would do. Instead, they seem to have openly defied Meghan at every turn.
Now, why would they potentially put their jobs at risk like that? They must have had at least tacit approval from William and Kate, or believed that they were proving their loyalty to WK by tossing roadblocks in front of Meghan. They clearly had no fear of professional repercussions for shoddy work, so the only conclusions to be drawn is that either a. subpar work is acceptable when you work for KP or b. the were assigned specifically to spy on or undermine Harry and Meghan – in which case they did their jobs well.
I’m not a huge Meghan fan, but her attorney is 100% right here about the word bullying being used too casually. It’s even worse when you get bullied by someone like Mrs. Keen herself, who then goes and claims it’s the other way around —and she’s the one being bullied!