‘Spare’: The Sussexes’ sent a 25-page rebuttal to the palace’s bullying claims

As I’m writing this, I still haven’t read Prince Harry’s Spare. It seems like Harry devoted a section to everything that happened around Prince Philip’s funeral, including a violent meeting with his brother and father. Keep in mind, this was April 2021, just weeks after the Sussexes’ Oprah interview aired. Just days before the Oprah interview aired, the Times of London reported on Jason Knauf’s letter to Simon Case – a letter from 2018 – in which Knauf claimed Meghan kept looking at Kensington Palace staffers and making them cry. Knauf and Kensington Palace conveniently leaked the letter just before the Oprah interview to make Meghan sound like an angry bully. At Philip’s funeral, apparently William and Charles brought up the bullsh-t bullying accusation, and here’s what Harry wrote:

Harry claimed Charles and William were “delusional” over allegations Meghan had bullied staff and he and his wife filed a 25-page report rebutting the allegations.

He said: “Meg was apparently a bully, that was the latest vicious campaign they’d helped orchestrate. It was so shocking, so egregious, that even after Meg and I demolished their lie with a 25-page, evidence-filled report to human resources, I was going to have trouble simply shrugging that one off.”

Blaming his family for dealing with the media, he added: “They began talking over each other. We’ve been down this road a hundred times, they said. You’re delusional, Harry. But they were the delusional ones.”

[From Yahoo]

I hope there’s even more context for the “25-page” filing to human resources. Hell, I hope Harry includes more details about just how Kensington Palace staff treated Meghan and how she was victimized by staffers just as much as she was victimized by William and Kate. I kind of wish Meghan and Harry had just released the 25-page rebuttal publicly at the time, in 2021. Then we wouldn’t have had to spend the past year and a half listening to asinine royal reporters say “Harry and Meghan never sued the Times about it, the accusations are true, she’s a bully!”

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.

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49 Responses to “‘Spare’: The Sussexes’ sent a 25-page rebuttal to the palace’s bullying claims”

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  1. Rapunzel says:

    The investigation was never about the bullying but about the handling of the investigation, right? I doubt the 25 page rebuttal was even read.

    • Lucy says:

      It probably was accurate and had receipts, which is why it’s the only document Harry has sent his family that hasn’t leaked. Convenient, no?

    • westcoastgal says:

      I feel the mentioning of the 25 page rebuttal is strategic in that they are saying we have more tea to spill if necessary. You don’t play all your cards and show every receipt. The BM themselves have stated the RF are relieved the book spared them even worse revelations. Harry and Meghan have remained incredibly gracious but they are showing that they are not afraid to tell the truth when it needs to be told, It would be wise for the RF to watch their step from here on. Put Camilla on a leash, that woman has caused the monarchy major damage with her leaks and close ties to the rats and rags. They have never looked uglier and less relevant. Ugh.

  2. Hummingbird says:

    And IIRC there was an investigation into the bullying claims by BP that mysteriously wasn’t published. Go figure.

  3. IForget says:

    I’ve had a love/hate relationship with documenting everything, journalling, and keeping receipts, but all this shows me that you can never be too careful.

    I grew up with an abusive, narcissistic mother who would gaslight me at every turn. I kept secret journals because I legitimately thought I was going crazy. Even just things like ‘vacuumed my bedroom for 10 minutes, found a cheerio under the window’ helped me keep my sanity.

    I document everything at work, any interactions with anyone who could potentially abuse me, anyone who has any position of authority over me (landlord, for example), and just for my own general reflection.

    This is an exhausting existence, and I hate that I worry that everyone could potentially be out to get me. I don’t believe that, and think most people are generally good. However, you can never be too careful, and your reputation can impact your ability to keep yourself alive and housed.

    My heart aches for them. I am grateful that Harry is putting this all out there. Coersive control, gaslighting on a global scale, these are all serious issues that don’t just impact Harry, but they impact our society, culture, and even our beliefs.

    • Asp says:

      Sending you hugs. And Meghan. I wish you both a vigilance-free future. Xo

    • Kokiri says:

      Same. My mother.
      It was years before I started to figure it out.
      I never thought to journal, but I kept track of patterns best I could. I wish I had thought to journal, that’s such a clever way to help see the facts.
      Thanks for posting 💕

    • Mabs A'Mabbin says:

      Virtual hugs (⁠づ⁠。⁠◕⁠‿⁠‿⁠◕⁠。⁠)⁠づ

      I wish I could journal. I’ve tried, and it started with my mom too. But she found my journal and read it. Then she shared with her prayer group. Then I was the center of prayer circles for months. I’m pretty sure this why I’ve never written anything personally. Generational maturity is too damn slow.

      • HamsterJam says:

        My heart breaks for you Mabs A’Mabbin. Your mother publicly violated you and turned your innermost thoughts into a public whipping.

        You must have been so hurt, shocked, mortified, confused.

        She tried to crush your soul.

        I. Have. No. Words. except I hope you survived and have found peace and are able to trust people again.

        I know I wouldn’t trust another human being in my life if that had happened to me.

      • Mabs A'Mabbin says:

        Thank you hamsterjam (your name makes me happy lol). I’ve grown into a cynical person lol. I lost both my mom and dad in 1999, so these are painful memories, but friends and family seem to think I’m a big goober with a cackle so I’m fine lol. I care about everyone and everything and sometimes it’s overwhelming, but thank you for hearing me out. Where do I send the check?

      • IForget says:

        what a disgusting violation, I am so so sorry you went through that 🙁

        psychological safety is SO important, especially with children. How someone could do this to someone they ‘love’ is beyond me. You deserve better than that

      • Athena says:

        Something similar happened to me. I use to write poetry in high school. My father went through the desk in my room, found my poems, not only read them but had the nerve to make corrections. I stopped writing after that. Later in life he would say, “ you use to write, what happened”. I ignored him, but what I should have done was to remind him of what he did. Although what would have been the point, my father has never apologized for anything in his life, at least not to me.

    • Bellah says:

      @IFORGET,

      🤗 Glad you found a way to cope with the trauma.

      Also, the irony of your name in light of your recordkeeping habits is chef’s kiss.

      • IForget says:

        LOL I didn’t even realise!!! I had a username on here years ago, didn’t comment for a while, and when I came back, I completely forgot what it was, so I went with this 😀 😀 😀

        Thank you, and everyone, for such lovely comments. To me, it shows the importance of Harry and Meghan speaking about their experience; it gives us a space to speak about ours in a place of psychologically safety.

    • Otaku fairy says:

      Sometimes you have to keep that paper trail, especially when there are nasty little dichotomies at play. Hope things are going better for you now.

  4. Flower says:

    This is why those bullying claims will never be adjudicated.

    The BRF know that their subterfuge will not work with someone like Meghan.

    Organizations hate women like Meghan because they don’t just suck it up where abuse is concerned.

    Kate set a horrible precedent after all Diana’s hard work to reform the institution. A price so high she paid with her marriage and then her life. Kate is literally the woman we speak of when we say ‘setting the feminist movement back’.

    Brits are just so weird and this is where the phrase ‘lie back and think of England’ comes from.

    • HamsterJam says:

      That phrase comes from a lady whose husband did not know how to please a woman in bed, and the way it is phrased she is assuming that no other English man knows how to as well.

      • antipodean says:

        Hahahaha @HamsterJam, from my limited experience that lady was not entirely wrong! Perfunctory is the attitude of the English men I have been acquainted with. I will save the blushes and go into no further details!

  5. Becks1 says:

    The bullying allegations puzzle me – not bc I think there was truth to them, there wasn’t.

    But why would William and Charles think there was? Why would they believe it just bc it was in a tabloid? Even though the Times had the story pre Oprah, we heard the story well before that in one of the tabloids. William and KP were the ones who gave the story to the Times, he knew it was a lie, so why act like it must be true? Was he just putting on an act for Harry? Did he think that bc Meghan stood up to him it meant she was a bully? Does he just believe what Jason Knauf tells him?

    It’s such a weird cycle – they accept what the tabloids say as fact, even though they are the ones giving the story to the tabloid and KNOWING it’s not fact. Do they think that provides them some kind of cover to make up whatever they want about whoever they want? William wanted to be able to call M a bully, so he put those allegations out there, and now he can be all “oh it’s not me, it’s the times that says that!!” And act innocent?

    • KFG says:

      They did it because it worked before. Harry used to just apologize and do what they said. They can’t fathom that those tactics won’t still work.

    • Veda says:

      I believe that the ‘bullying’ matter was Simon case and Jason knauf filling William’s ears. I think he then authorised them to hand the email over to Val low believing them to be true. The other explanation is a simple one- Chucky and Peggy are gaslighting Haz.

      • Elizabeth says:

        I think that this is a likely scenario. Remember, William and Kate were known to be in the office rarely so that they wouldn’t have seen first-hand evidence of bullying from either Meghan or the staff towards Meghan.

    • Emily_C says:

      They told Harry they accepted what the tabloids said as fact. But they were the ones planting the lies. Harry obviously still wants to believe what his family said about their motivations, and that’s understandable. However, I don’t believe them.

  6. Harper says:

    The Windsors are terrified that the 25 page document will be released. Harry is probably ceding the bullying details to Meghan to reveal in her memoir, which we’ll see in a few years I imagine.

    • Elizabeth says:

      That’s why despite Dan Wooten’s pleading for former KP staffers to be released from their NDAs, they won’t be, because they are afraid of Harry & Meghan’s lawyers releasing the rebuttal to the press.

    • Christine says:

      Such a good call, Harper! I think you are right, the 25 page document should be ceded to Meghan, for her eventual book. We don’t need further breakdown of Meghan’s “bullying” from anyone British, honestly, including Harry, much as I adore him. Meghan’s side is the only interesting one with regards to the bullying lies, everyone else is just varying degrees of British, even Harry.

  7. Brassy Rebel says:

    Now we know why the bullying claims were quickly buried. A 25 page rebuttal will do that.

    • lanne says:

      more importantly, it lets the public know that this rebuttal exists. The rebuttal can be made public if the royals try to persist with slandering Meghan’s character. I think this will be the end of the “bullying” investigation. It was a stupid ruse to begin with, one that wouldn’t stand up to scrutiny. The royals are surrounded by jokers and idiots with posh accents.

  8. equality says:

    He should have thrown their own bullying back in their faces. Charles and Will both have palace leaks about bullying.

    • MsIam says:

      I think that is what he’s doing with this book and why the Unroyals don’t like it.

    • Lux says:

      We all saw first hand Charles throwing a hissy fit because of an ink pen and now we have first hand accounts of William attacking his brother, pointing his finger in Meghan’s face, and being a screaming terror in a room full of witnesses. Harry is showing us who the bullies are, not just telling us about an incident where someone felt something that was definitely done by Meghan the Bully. Please, show us the 25-page rebuttal! I want to hear about Melissa Toubati, Samantha Cohen, Jason Knauff and whoever else crumbling under the pressure of clear expectations. I need a reason for why I still remember their full names.

  9. DancingCorgi says:

    Watching some of Harry’s interviews this week and reading the use of the word delusional above, it occurred to me how easily the palace can start putting a Harry is mentally ill spin on things: this is why he’s saying all this, because darling boy is not well.

    • MsIam says:

      “He’s mentally ill but he’s getting too much therapy because he thinks WE are the problem!” I just can’t with those people.

    • Layla says:

      I might be a bit naive here but if they were to do that, with all the truth Harry has put out there about planting of stories and the r’ship between the palace and the press, surely the majority of the British public that aren’t stupid enough to consume the sh*t the press regurgitate would see it for what it is: gaslighting. And considering all the sh*t they’ve pulled with both Meghan and Ngozi Fulani, how would it look that the palace, “staunch advocates” for mental health are gaslighting their own son/brother to the max?

      • DancingCorgi says:

        “Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth”, is a law of propaganda often attributed to the Nazi Joseph Goebbels. If the Palace feeds that to enough news outlets, over and over, who knows what the public will end up believing. Already Camilla is approaching the issue, sideways like a crab, saying Harry has been “kidnapped by psychotherapists”.

  10. Concern Fae says:

    My take on this is that there were culture clashes. It happens. It gets resolved. If in my job there was the expectation that I got a low salary because I could leave after lunch if there was nothing to do and didn’t have to work on Fridays if I had weekend plans or Mondays if I was hungover, I’d be furious if some American showed up and I now had to work 9-5 and hustle. I would be totally bitching to my co-workers about it.

    Is this non professional? Sure, but it wasn’t a professional workplace, was it? The problem became when Knauf (?) took this behind the scenes grumbling and turned it into tabloid fodder. The complainers realized right away that while they were annoyed by it all, it wasn’t in any way the bullying depicted in the tabloids. Which is why the HR complaints disappeared so fast. What gets griped about among co workers isn’t the same as what gets taken to HR.

    But I realize everyone else here is a completely professional fvcking saint, who would never even mention to a co worker that the workload had massively increased, along with the hours. These gripe sessions can get out of hand, but they also set the group expectation of whether something is unfair or not. It says a lot that despite the griping, these people refused to go along with an HR report. My guess is they realized that had it easy before and this was the real job.

    I’m on the waitlist for the library. Very curious to read the details on this.

    • Emily_C says:

      Nah, Knauf was just lying. It was I believe Valentine Low who said 100% of the accusations came from Knauf.

    • Saucy&Sassy says:

      Concern Fae, I wonder why you sound defensive? I’m sure part of it was cultural, but that’s not the entire story. Why did the staff have nicknames for Meghan that the bm printed? Why did the person who was hired to help with the wedding, lie about her experience? There was much more going on than just a cultural difference.

      I can’t speak to the work ethic in the UK, because I’m American. I can assure you that my employers always expected me to work the hours I was hired for. I don’t know what employers in the UK expect.

      I don’t recall anyone here ever mentioning that they were a saint. Perhaps your memory is better than mine?

  11. Kingston says:

    @concernfae

    “But I realize everyone else here is a completely professional fvcking saint, who would never even mention to a co worker that the workload had massively increased, along with the hours.”

    WTF are you on about? LMAO

    ALSO:
    “If in my job there was the expectation that I got a low salary because I could leave after lunch if there was nothing to do….”

    Aaah, but it turns out, there WERE “things to do,” innit?

  12. Amy Bee says:

    If Meghan was truly guilty of bullying that would have leaked to the press. I’m with Kaiser, I wish Harry and Meghan would release their rebuttal. Maybe they will one day if BP tries to smear Meghan with those bullying allegations again.

  13. AmelieOriginal says:

    Ugh, you think the Windsors would learn their lessons about leaking against the Sussexes. They have receipts and will correct the record at some point. Maybe not right away but eventually they’ll get their side out there with hints that they have receipts. It’s got to be exhausting and you think at some point Harry and Meghan would say “we’ll just let this go” but they will always document everything with receipts. I REALLY want to see someday this infamous apology note Kate gave Meghan after bridesmaid dress gate. You know the Sussexes kept it. We’ll probably never see it but the morbid curiosity in me wants to see it.

    • Saucy&Sassy says:

      AmelieOrginial, Harry said that it was a 25-page rebuttal with evidence. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall when BP HR received that. What do you want to bet that there was more than enough information to show that people were bullying Meghan?

  14. QuiteContrary says:

    Yeah, I’d pay money to read that rebuttal. I’m sure it did demolish the bullying lie. No one who knew Meghan, or worked with her before, bought the lie.

    The royals really do believe everyone is going to buy their BS. Reality must suck for them.

  15. robin samuels says:

    Well, I have my book. I love the writer’s style and use of descriptive language, and it goes great with a cup of sweet cinnamon tea.
    When I worked in corporate America, I ended my day by journaling. I was in a managerial position; journaling is necessary because there is always a bright moment in employee relations. When I moved to education, I continued journaling because colleague/student moments can be even more colorful. I’ve experienced incidents where my journal entry was helpful to others.
    The bullying allegation was another KP bullying act, except they didn’t expect Meghan’s attorney to respond by requesting a breakdown of the allegations. After Meghan’s victory in the Daily Fail lawsuit and the exposure of Jason Knauf’s involvement, they hoped the bullying story would fade into the sunset. Still, the tabloids and derangers won’t let it go. They’re now trying to pin the leaking on domestic staff, gardeners, maintenance specialists, laundry aides, etc. Somebody has to go under that bus. The ball is in KP’s court. As they say in the schoolyard, “Bring It.”

  16. Leesa says:

    The buttons on that red coat are tragic. That outfit did not age well.