Like a cavalry galloping to the rescue of their wounded leaders, current and former employees of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex were quick to post this week to praise their bosses.
In the pages of Us Weekly, an influential American showbiz magazine popular with teen girls and teen moms, print and online readers were breathlessly informed by Team Sussex that Prince Harry was a super-cool guy, no airs, just a regular, rah-rah-rah guy.
Meanwhile, what about boss Meghan? According to those who worked for her and lived to tell the tale, she was absolutely wonderful, too. No, seriously. Pass me that halo and let her duchess love light shine.
Staff’s glowing tributes cast the Duchess of Sussex as a Mother Teresa of munificence
Because she was kind and thoughtful. She made excellent gourmet treats. “Some of my favorite memories,” said former Archewell president Mandana Dayani, who lasted 18 months until she left in 2022, “were during our weekly meetings at her home in Montecito, where Meghan always served the most incredible lunches and her latest beautiful creations.”
I imagine delicacies like “vegetable soup” and “green salad,” possibly even a delicious “egg-based omelet” made from the chickens rescued from the house.
As Sussex’s staff detailed the positives for posterity, it was difficult to determine the true nature of their relationship with their bosses: lawyer-client, doctor-patient, jailer-inmate, star-civilian, duchess-handmaid?
Was it my imagination or did the outpourings of these drone workers remind me of the mounting hysteria of someone chained to a radiator in the basement of Archewell Towers, hoping to get home for Christmas?
According to her parti pris gibberish, Meghan was a Tinker Bell of sweets, a Mother Teresa of munificence; this goddess who gifted her staff with bow-tied gifts and shared and cared in accordance with her brand.
“When I adopted my dog, the next day I had a luxury brand leash and a brand new collar on my doorstep,” said one former employee, who hilariously thought the gifts were for her pup.
“They want to take care of us,” one current employee told Us Weekly. “Meghan does things like, ‘You mentioned on the call that your skin is bothering you. I put together a kit for you.'”
Is that being kind and helpful? Is that looking after the spotty cripples or an unspoken message to improve their performance?
For those of us who have spent our entire lives working in offices and various workplaces, alongside good and bad bosses, the idea of a superior sending you a bottle of anti-wrinkle cream or an ointment to improve your mood, well, it just makes me want to die.
But there’s more: Meghan, one staffer said, is known for giving credit where credit is due.
Former Archewell Chair Mandana Dayani with the Duchess of Sussex in 2022
“If you’re in a meeting and a great idea is mentioned, she makes sure to give credit (respect and recognition) to the person who generated the idea,” they said. “And after a great trip, each employee receives a personal email thanking them for their contribution to making it a success.”
An email! How nice! Isn’t this the minimum respect a valued member of staff deserves?
These fawning responses in Us Weekly came in response to a damning article in The Hollywood Reporter, which claimed the duchess’s “terrible behavior” was the root cause of the high staff turnover rate at the couple’s Archewell company.
The report published earlier this month in the entertainment industry bible claimed that many who work for and have worked for Meghan are “terrified” of her. It included quotes from sources calling her a “dictator in high heels” who “belittles” people and has made “grown men” cry.
I should note here that Us Weekly is to the Sussexes what Pravda was to Stalin and what the Guardian is to Labour MP Jess Phillips: a strident clarion of uncritical support. Thus we hear in great detail about visits by the Archewell team to the couple’s Montecito mansion, where Meghan gave everyone baskets of flowers, fruit and eggs to take home. How lovely of her! She also passed on her children’s hand-me-down clothes to them. Is there no limit to her generosity?
One employee even told Us Weekly that despite Meghan’s reputation as a mini tyrant, they’d “never” heard her yell. Instead, the duchess gave her staff “clear direction and is solutions-oriented,” which makes her seem like a rather charming and docile bottle of glue.
And when it came to hiring staff, another keen Archewell acolyte insisted that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex always “picked the best of the best from each field and watered the seeds to make them flourish”.
But what are Harry and Meghan cultivating for posterity in California? An Archewell empire or a total failure? Seeds, solutions, eggs… What the hell is going on?
Of course, these allegations are nothing new to royal watchers in the UK. The Duchess of Sussex has long been dogged by reports that she fosters a toxic work environment, along with repeated allegations of what her lawyers insist to this day we must call “difficult” behaviour. In 2021, the Sussexes dismissed as smear reports that the former actress had allegedly bullied and reduced staff members to tears at Kensington Palace. However, it is no secret that the couple has lost 18 employees to date in their short time as a business entity in both the UK and the US.
A new US-based source blames the “insufferable” and “condescending” Meghan for the alarming rate of “churn and burn.” These rumours aren’t going away, but the big difference this time is that it’s the US media that’s making the claims.
Maer Roshan, co-editor-in-chief of The Hollywood Reporter, said she is standing by the story after a backlash that included a Sussex source saying the claims were “fabricated.”
Current and former employees of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex were quick to post this week to praise their bosses.
Roshan told Access Hollywood: ‘Our reporter spoke to a very high-level source who works for the couple and said, ‘Everyone is scared of Meghan.’
“Difficult Duchess is a moniker that has dogged Meghan Markle for a number of years. What is new is that since she arrived in the United States there has been a widespread belief that many of these rumours were fabricated by the Palace. The reporting we have done suggests that is probably not true and there is still an undercurrent of fear.”
Many of you will remember Prince Harry, with his high-pitched, strained, aggrieved voice, telling the world in his various documentaries and interviews that: “There is a hierarchy in the (Royal) Family. You know there are leaks, but there are also leaks of stories.”
Even The Hollywood Reporter, a neutral observer, has now raised an eyebrow at this development, devastating for the couple, whose reputation has so far survived by blaming their difficulties on the royal family and the British press, rather than examining their own alleged misconduct.
Just a few issues ago, in Us Weekly, the Duchess of Sussex guiltlessly smoothed out the folds of her kilt and told everyone that she was opening “a joyful chapter” in her life and that everything was going well around her.
But now, once again, the Sussexes are back to square one: spending time, energy, favours and friends defending themselves from the indefensible.
We’ve been here before, here we are again; swimming against this avalanche of bad press, pushing our way through the snowdrifts of sarcasm.
It makes me wonder: was the Sussexes’ escape west – this bridge-burning journey to what they presumed would be a better, kinder world, patrolled by powerful friends like Oprah and billionaire Tyler Perry – simply driven by a hunger for the praise and admiration they felt was their due?
But Meghan and Harry can no longer present themselves to the world as a besieged couple, a pair of smiling moralists who feel they are victims of racism and harassment.
The Hollywood Reporter described them as “poor decision-makers” who “frequently changed their minds,” adding that Harry was a “very charming person” but “very enabling.” Poor fool.
The Difficult Duchess and the Enabling Prince? It sounds like something out of a terrible Harry Potter novel, only now there’s no magic spell to make this fresh stench disappear in the California air.
No matter how successful, adored and famous a pop star becomes, there will always be a grouch in the corner complaining that they can’t understand what all the fuss is about. Usually that grouch is me, but not when it comes to Taylor Swift. I adore Taylor’s songs and her admirable, insane work ethic, which reached a peak this month with the release of two new albums: The Tortured Poets Department and The Anthology, both written, recorded and performed while she is in the midst of her Eras world tour, performing onstage for three hours straight at each show.
