How the palace tried to rescue ‘Duchess Difficult’
As Meghan apologises for misleading a British court, Camilla Tominey reveals the lengths to which staff went to save the Sussexes from themselves
Two days before Jason Knauf sat down with Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand to provide a two-hour background briefing for Finding Freedom – their biography of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex – he had an extraordinary email exchange with Prince Harry.
Desperate for the authors to “get some truths out there”, the prince begged the communications secretary he shared with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to make sure his wife, Meghan, was cast in a positive light.
“Are u planning on giving them a rough idea of what she’s been through over the last 2yrs?,” he demanded. “Media onslaught, cyber bullying on a different scale, puppeteering Thomas Markle etc etc etc.
“Even if they choose not to use it, they should hear what it was like from someone who was in the thick of it. So if you aren’t planning on telling them, can I?!” An incredulous Knauf replied: “Of course – I’ve never stopped!”
It was a sharp insight into just how many fires he – and others – had fought on Harry and Meghan’s behalf in the two years since she had come on to the royal scene. Understandably, much has been made of the evidence showing that the Duchess did cooperate with the authors of what turned out to be a highly flattering account of the Sussexes’ lives in the Royal Family.
Indeed, this week, Meghan was forced to apologise for previously unintentionally misleading the High Court, in her privacy case against The Mail on Sunday that is now at the Court of Appeal.
But this week’s revelations also lay bare another uncomfortable “truth” for the couple. Far from being unsupported by the “institution”, as they described the monarchy to interviewer Oprah Winfrey, the evidence appears to tell a different story.
Rather than being abandoned, it is a damning indictment of the gospel according to Harry and Meghan.
Moreover, it exposes just how much was done behind the scenes to placate the pair nicknamed “Duchess Difficult” and “The Hostage” below stairs. Plus, it is a vindication of staff who have always claimed they “bent over backwards” for the couple.
Most of all, it is impossible now not to recall Meghan’s emotional interview with Oprah last March, as she exclaimed: “I’ve advocated for so long for women to use their voice – and I was silent.”
When asked “Were you silent or were you silenced?”, Meghan famously replied: “The latter. Not only was I not being protected, but they were willing to lie to protect other members of the family – but they weren’t willing to tell the truth to protect me and my husband.”
Yet what Knauf ’s witness statement – and the Duchess’s response to it – reveals is that no one was silent. And it wasn’t just the palace PR machine that was going into overdrive for the couple but the Royals themselves.
Indeed, further contradicting her earlier primetime narrative, Meghan this week went into great detail about the lengths her in-laws had gone to to help. Especially in regards to her father, Thomas Markle Snr, who pulled out of his daughter’s May 2018 wedding at Windsor Castle at the last minute, following a heart attack.
She admitted two senior members of the Royal Family – whose names have not been made public – held a meeting with her and Harry “in regards to how to deal with the concern surrounding my father and his dealings with the media”. Meghan went on: “In accordance with the advice that I received from the two senior family members… I decided that I would write a letter to my father.”
Yet while the Duchess claims “it was only when my father began criticising the Royal family that senior members of the family and their advisers expressed their concern… and their desire to have them stopped”, palace insiders tell a different story.
In fact, they insist that “concerns were raised” on multiple occasions
‘It wasn’t just a problem that they read everything, it was that they were both thin-skinned’ Former palace employee
about how to help the couple – as well as “manage the Thomas Markle situation”, long before he started talking to the media.
The revelations this week certainly seem to contradict Harry’s claim to Oprah that they left the Royal family due to a “lack of support and lack of understanding”. According to one well-placed source: “High-level discussions were taking place about the Duchess’s father for months and months before the wedding.”
But matters really came to a head when Markle, a former Hollywood lighting director, gave his first ever interview to the Daily Mirror in December 2017.
In an article headlined “Royal Wedding Exclusive: I’d Love To Walk Meghan Down The Aisle”, the frontpage story boasted of how a reporter had tracked Meghan’s “reclusive” father down to Rosarito Beach “to discuss the upcoming union between his daughter and Prince Harry”.
Asked if he would be in attendance at St George’s Chapel to walk his daughter down the aisle, Markle answered: “Yes. I’d love to.” Then, he added, cautiously: “I’m very pleased. I’m delighted. I’m sorry. You know I can’t talk.”
The Telegraph understands that the article sparked “crisis talks” at the palace, an institution well-versed in managing situations that protect its own reputation and privacy. Another source says: “The whole institution was involved, not just the press office, but palace lawyers, senior aides and family members.”
As Meghan revealed in her witness statement this week, around the time she was drafting her letter to her father in August 2018, Simon Case, then Prince William’s press secretary and now the Cabinet Secretary, even suggested that the couple “fly out to see my father and speak with him in person”.
Explaining why they decided against it, she added: “It seemed to me, however, that, even had I wanted to, it was completely unrealistic to think that I could fly discreetly to Mexico, arrive unannounced on his doorstep (as I had no secure means of communication with my father), to a location and residence I had never visited or known, in a small border town that had been descended upon by the press, and somehow hope to speak privately to my father without causing a frenzy of media attention and intrusion that could bring yet more embarrassment to the Royal family.”
In text messages released yesterday, Meghan accused the Royal family of “constantly berating” Harry over the behaviour of her estranged father, saying they “fundamentally don’t understand” why she couldn’t fly to meet him.
But The Telegraph understands that such concerns were taken seriously, and a royal aide, who would not have attracted any media attention, offered to visit Markle on the couple’s behalf; the offer was declined.
Insiders say the couple were backed from the beginning – and it is not just Mr Knauf ’s witness statement that supports that premise, but Meghan’s, too. As she wrote to the judge this week: “I had privately endured the media onslaught surrounding my father with the support of my husband and Mr Knauf.”
Having been born in America and educated in New Zealand, with a formidable career in public relations under his belt having spun for the Royal Bank of Scotland in the wake of the global financial crisis, cool-headed and approachable Mr Knauf appeared perfect for the job.
Indeed, the mild-mannered and progressive-thinking Texan moved heaven and earth for Meghan, seemingly responding to Harry’s desperate pleas that he would “lose her” if she wasn’t well protected.
On Thursday, the court heard how 39-year-old Knauf came forward to give evidence after a one-year campaign to persuade him, after he “regretted” failing to speak out about what he knew
about the drafting of Meghan’s letter to her father and the couple’s involvement with Finding Freedom earlier. Having first been approached by The Mail on Sunday’s lawyer, Keith Mathieson, in September 2020, it was not until July this year that he eventually provided a written statement, insisting it was from a “position of neutrality” and covering only the relevant facts.
He said: “This has been a difficult and time-consuming process that I have not sought a role in” – an understatement, perhaps, when you consider that his current bosses are the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.
Although he ended up working solely for William and Kate, Knauf was originally far closer to Harry when he first joined the Kensington Palace press office in 2015. In one email, Harry, 37 – to whom Knauf refers as “Sir” throughout – appears on such familiar terms with his comms chief that, when referring to collaborating with the Finding Freedom authors, he willingly confides: “I totally agree that we have to be able to say we didn’t have anything to do with it.
“Equally, you giving the right context and background to them would help get some truths out there. The truth is v much needed and would be appreciated, especially around the Markle/wedding stuff, but at the same time we can’t put them directly in touch with her friends.”
Their close relationship had been forged two years earlier in October 2016. Completely surprised by my scoop revealing Harry’s relationship with Meghan Markle – then a virtually unknown US actress – it was Knauf, only a year into the job, who managed the media in the immediate aftermath and beyond. Since I had not given Kensington Palace prior warning, Knauf soon found himself inundated with requests from outlets around the world. He also had to manage the couple’s reaction to their relationship being made public after having secretly dated for about six months.
Yet what the PR professional, who took a masters degree in politics and communication at the London School of Economics, could not have foreseen is how he would be compromised from the start. This was when Harry and Meghan persuaded him to put out an unprecedented statement – in his own name – condemning the press for how they had reacted to the news that the Suits star was the prince’s “girlfriend”.
The statement “by the Communications Secretary to Prince Harry”, published on November 8 2016, read: “The past week has seen a line crossed. His girlfriend, Meghan Markle, has been subject to a wave of abuse and harassment.” Detailing how she had been “smeared” and calling out the “racial undertones” of comment pieces, the strongly worded warning put Knauf in a difficult position. Suddenly, the palace was being pitted against the press with whom it was his job to liaise.
By referencing how Meghan’s mother, Doria Ragland, had “had to struggle past photographers in order to get to her front door” and “the attempts of reporters and photographers to gain illegal entry to her home and the calls to police that followed”, the salvo also set the tone for a narrative that continued throughout the Sussexes’ tenure at The Firm, all the way to Oprah’s sofa. Namely that, like the late Diana, Princess of Wales, Meghan was a victim.
As the statement went on: “Prince Harry is worried about Ms. Markle’s safety and is deeply disappointed that he has not been able to protect her. It is not right that a few months into a relationship with him that Ms Markle should be subjected to such a storm. He knows commentators will say this is ‘the price she has to pay’ and that ‘this is all part of the game’. He strongly disagrees. This is not a game – it is her life and his.”
Friends of Knauf say he had no choice but to sign off the statement, even though it put him in an awkward position with the journalists he had to deal with on a daily basis. Not least when a rather “desperate” Harry appeared to intimate not putting it out might cost him his fledgling relationship with “The One”.
The 403-word statement – which The Telegraph understands was drafted with both Harry and Meghan’s input – not only set a new precedent far removed from the Queen’s tried-and-tested mantra of “never complain, never explain”; it also marked the Duchess’s first hands-on foray into royal media management, which would continue throughout her time in the Royal family.
Rather than picking their battles, the couple made it clear that they would be paying close attention to what had been written about them, which left Knauf and the rest of the palace’s “Team Sussex” with their work cut out. “It wasn’t just a problem that they read everything,” explained one former employee, “it was that they were both really thin-skinned.”
Following their engagement in November 2017 – exactly a year after Knauf had fired off his bombshell missive – the couple were given their own team of staff who learned quickly that it would be a 24/7 job.
“The last thing we’d do before going to sleep is reply to their messages, and the first thing we’d do in the morning is reply to their messages,” said one former aide. “Weekends, holidays – there were no boundaries. They live on their phones all the time.” Rather than being abandoned by the palace machine, staff were actually working overtime to “super-serve” the couple.
As arguably evidenced by Meghan’s 23-page response to Knauf ’s witness statement, the Duchess was intent on being across the detail. She told Knauf when drafting the handwritten letter to her father: “Obviously, everything I drafted is with the understanding that it could be leaked, so I have been meticulous in my word choice but please do let me know if anything stands out for you as a liability… [I] toiled over every detail which could be manipulated…”
In the end, Knauf says, “the Duchess accepted one small drafting suggestion I made, to mention her father’s health in the letter”. Similarly, as his witness statement explains, it was Meghan who wrote “some background reminders” for his meeting with Scobie and Durand, while offering to “fill in any other blanks”.
Topic areas included information on how she had very minimal contact with her half-siblings throughout her childhood, that she had been “close [for] most of her life” with her father, and she had supported him “in spite of his reclusiveness”, and the fact her halfsister Samantha had had three children with three different fathers. She even wanted to give her “perspective on the thinking behind a statement in November 2016 issued by Mr Knauf ”, as well as detailing how the tiara for her wedding had been selected.
As one insider put it: “That’s vintage Meghan. She was a control freak throughout.”
To counter briefings suggesting the couple were demanding and difficult, a number of Meghan’s anonymous friends popped up in the press suggesting palace employees “who preferred a more genteel pace” could not keep up with the Duchess’s “American work ethic”.
Naturally, the tempo picked up even more with the wedding fast approaching in the new year of 2018. “The wedding was hugely stressful for everyone involved in it,” said one former aide.
When her father pulled out of the wedding three days before the big day, the Royals rallied, with Prince Charles offering to walk Meghan down the aisle instead. The Most Rev Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who officiated the ceremony, is also understood to have been drafted in to provide “psychological as well as spiritual” support.
Yet it is the timetable of events that have been laid bare in court this week that give the strongest indication of how much help the couple received. In the autumn of 2018 Meghan’s PA, Melissa Toubati, sensationally quit, the first of nine staff members to leave in the subsequent 18 months. The couple were apparently “furious” about reports of their high staff turnover – piling more pressure on their PR people to “try to turn negative headlines into positives”.
We now know Knauf continued to work tirelessly and intimately with Harry and Meghan, even after he had submitted a bullying claim against them in October 2018.
Knauf sent an email to Case warning that he feared “nothing would be done” about alleged attacks on staff, which was then passed on to Samantha Carruthers, the head of HR based at Clarence House. Despite this, he continued working for the couple for a further six months.
After the Sussexes found out about the bullying complaint, their relationship with Knauf irretrievably broke down, and in March 2019, he became an adviser to the Cambridges, before becoming chief executive of their Royal Foundation. He leaves the charity next month to join his husband in India, where he has been working for the British Embassy in Delhi.
Harry and Meghan replaced Knauf with another American PR supremo in the form of Sara Latham, a former adviser to the Clintons. The modus operandi, however, remained unchanged, with the couple returning from a tour to Africa in October 2019 with a statement by Harry accusing “some newspapers” of “vilifying” his wife “almost daily for the past nine months”.
Referencing his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, who died in 1997, in a Paris car crash while being pursued by the paparazzi, the Duke said: “Though this action may not be the safe one, it is the right one. Because my deepest fear is history repeating itself. I lost my mother and now I watch my wife falling victim to the same powerful forces.”
In January 2020, they announced that they would be “stepping back as senior Royals” to become “financially independent”, making it clear they wanted to be free of any restraints.
Of course, what we have really learned from this week’s court proceedings is how much control the Sussexes had all along – and how much those around them desperately tried to save them from themselves.
Meghan accused the Royal family of ‘constantly berating’ Harry over the behaviour of her estranged father, Thomas