Prince Harry, self-styled compassion advocate, joined Meghan in berating royal staff, new book says

Headlines over the weekend about an explosive new book from a respected royal reporter have focused on allegations that Meghan Markle bullied palace staff, reduced at least one to tears, subjected them to angry tirades and was branded by them as a “narcissistic sociopath.”

Excerpts of Valentine’s Low’s book, “Courtiers: the Hidden Power Behind the Crown,” suggest that such alleged behavior by the American TV actress-turned-Duchess of Sussex wouldn’t have been possible without the support and complicity of Prince Harry.

Indeed, a series of excerpts, published in the Times UK, show that Harry did his own share of yelling at staff. The excerpts also describe how, even before Meghan came along in Harry’s life in 2016, the second son of King Charles III could behave petulantly. He distrusted palace courtiers, was obsessed with the media, subjected his staff to “loyalty tests” and was mired in frustration about own role in the royal family. “After Meghan turned up, it got significantly worse,” Low wrote.

For example, there was one young female aide who was on the receiving end of  a browbeating by both Harry and Meghan, Low reported. First, Meghan excoriated the woman in a staff meeting in the high-pressure run-up to her 2018 royal wedding, Low wrote. Meghan then felt that she had been let down by that staffer over another issue. She called the employee repeatedly when the staffer was out for dinner on a Friday night.

“Every ten minutes, I had to go outside to be screamed at by her and Harry,” the employee said, according to Low’s book. “It was, ‘I can’t believe you’ve done this. You’ve let me down. What were you thinking?’ It went on for a couple of hours.”

The calls started again the next morning and continued “for days,” the staffer said, Low reported. “You could not escape them. There were no lines or boundaries — it was last thing at night, first thing in the morning.” That staffer broke down in tears after Prince William heard about her treatment and came to console her and assure her she was doing a good job, Low writes.

The idea that Harry allegedly joined his wife in being rude or demeaning to people who worked for them doesn’t square with the image the Duke of Sussex has tried to present of himself since stepping away from royal life in 2020 and moving to California.

Harry has branded himself as an advocate for mental health and compassion. The army veteran holds the lofty-sounding title of “chief impact officer” for the San Francisco-based startup BetterUp, which advocates for healthy workplaces by providing “mental fitness” services to corporate clients.

Prince Harry Joins BetterUp as Chief Impact Officer: “What I’ve learned in my own life is the power of transforming pain into purpose.” https://t.co/srcXABiPLN pic.twitter.com/BPJU1YmsFX

— Mad About Meghan (@MadAboutMeghan) March 23, 2021

Harry and Meghan’s Archewell Foundation also has promoted their belief that compassion is “at the core of everything we do” and central to driving “systemic, cultural change.”

“We believe that compassion is at the core of all culture and connection in this world,” the couple said in a statement posted on their Archewell Foundation website in 2021, reports said. “It shows up in all of our interactions with people and enriches our lives and the lives of those around us.”

According to Low’s book, however, this compassion didn’t extend to people who worked for Harry and Meghan when they were part of the royal apparatus.

Low is the reporter who broke the news in March 2021 that Meghan was the subject of a formal bullying complaint at Buckingham Palace. Because Low’s report came days before the couple’s bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey, Meghan and her lawyers characterized the allegations as part of “a calculated smear campaign.”

Low acknowledged in his book that it can be hard “to define exactly when a particular behavior amounts to bullying.” He quoted Jenny Afia, an attorney for Meghan, as saying. “What bullying actually means is improperly using power repeatedly and deliberately to hurt someone physically or emotionally. The Duchess of Sussex absolutely denies ever doing that. Knowing her as I do, I can’t believe she would ever do that. It just doesn’t match my experience of her at all.”

Nonetheless, the bullying allegations accelerated a major shake-up at Kensington Palace, with Harry and Meghan splitting their household from William and Kate Middleton’s. It also prompted Buckingham Palace to launch an investigation. To the consternation of many who care about transparency in the monarchy, the palace announced in July that the results of the investigation would remain private.

People have speculated that the findings exonerated Meghan and Harry — or that the Sussexes were let off the hook because the investigation also implicated other royal family members in bad behavior. Another view is that the investigation was buried so as to not upset Elizabeth II, who was in declining health. She died Sept. 8 at age 96.

It may be that Low got some insider information about the investigation because new details have made their way into his book. Low quotes from an email that Jason Knauf, the American communications secretary for the Sussexes and for William and Kate, sent to his immediate boss in October 2018. He said he spoke to the head of HR for the palace about “some very serious problems” concerning Meghan’s behavior.

“I am very concerned that the duchess was able to bully two PAs out of the household in the past year,” Knauf wrote in his email. “We have had report after report from people who have witnessed unacceptable behavior towards (name of staff member withheld by Low) despite the universal views from her colleagues that she is a leading talent within the household who is delivering first-rate work.”

Allegations that Harry and Meghan were highly demanding or rude to aides first emerged in the first year of their marriage. Notably, there was the scandal dubbed “tiara-gate.” As has been widely reported, the queen agreed to lend Meghan a tiara for her wedding just as she had done for Kate seven years earlier.

During an appointment at Buckingham Palace with Angela Kelly, the queen’s dresser, Meghan picked out the Queen Mary’s diamond bandeau tiara from a shortlist of approved tiaras, Low wrote. But trouble erupted when Meghan wanted her hairdresser to make sure it would work with her planned hairstyle.

Unfortunately, on the day that Meghan’s hairdresser, Serge Normant, was in London, Kelly was not available, so neither was the tiara. “In Harry’s view, this was Kelly being obstructive,” Low wrote. “Finding Freedom,” the sympathetic biography of Harry and Meghan, alleges that Kelly ignored repeated requests from Meghan and Harry to set up a date for a hair trial, which left Harry “furious.”

“Nothing could convince Harry that some of the old guard at the palace simply didn’t like Meghan and would stop at nothing to make her life difficult,” wrote the “Finding Freedom” Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand.

Low said there could be another version of “tiara-gate.” It is that Harry and Meghan didn’t make the appointment out of naivety or because they expected others to be ready on their command. Low cited a source for The Mail on Sunday who said that Kelly’s essential view was, “There’s protocol in place over these jewels. They’re kept under very tight lock and key. You can’t turn up and demand to have the tiara just because your hairdresser happens to be in town.”

Low reported that Harry began calling people to put pressure on Kelly to bend the rules, but he did so, using “fairly fruity language.” Whether Harry swore at Kelly, or about her, is not clear, Low said, but the queen wasn’t wasn’t impressed. When Kelly reported Harry’s statements to the queen, she summoned her grandson to a private meeting. “He was firmly put in his place,” a source said. “He had been downright rude.”

Low also reports on personally witnessing Harry being petulant and rude, while accompanying the couple on their highly successful 2018 royal tour to Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific. A standard part of the royal tour usually comes when the royals venture to the back of the plane to say hello to the media.

Behind the scenes on the tour, Harry had looked out of sorts, Low said. “His relations with the media pack had been prickly and strained. Where Meghan smiled, always putting on her best face whenever she was on show, Harry glowered.”

On the plane flying from Tonga to Australia, Harry and Meghan only appeared after the plane landed in Sydney.

“I remember the scene well,” Low writes. “Harry looked like a sulky teenager.” Harry also sounded rushed, as if he couldn’t wait to get back into the first-class cabin. “Thanks for coming,” he said, “even though you weren’t invited.”

Low points out that the media had in fact been invited to cover the tour, but aside from Harry being “spectacularly rude,” Low said the duke’s statement showed how much his behavior reflected his and Meghan’s deteriorating relationship with their staff.

Low also muses on why Harry has always been so eager to please Meghan, even though it has left him on the outs with his family. When they were dating, Meghan allegedly threatened to break up with him if he didn’t publicly announce she was his girlfriend.

Another source also described to Low how Harry probably came to see Meghan as his savior. Low also reported that Harry and Meghan’s departure from royal life was seen as inevitable by their staff, even if it didn’t have to be so acrimonious.

It’s not just because an independent, ambitious woman like Meghan couldn’t fit in with the hierarchy and rules of royal life, Low reported. It’s because Harry was deeply unhappy, especially because of his fear that he could become irrelevant after the queen died and William became first in line to the throne, and his nephew, Prince George, assumed more prominence as he grew older.

“There is a part of me that thinks Meghan did Harry the greatest kindness anyone could do to him, which was to take him out of the royal family, because he was just desperately unhappy in the last couple of years in his working life,” the source told Low. “We knew he was unhappy, but we didn’t really know what the solution would be. She came along and found the solution.”