Like a cavalry galloping to the rescue of their wounded leaders, former and current employees of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex rushed into print this week to big up their bosses.
In the pages of Us Weekly, an influential American showbiz magazine popular with teens and teen-moms, print and online readers were breathlessly informed by Team Sussex that Prince Harry was a super-great guy, no airs and graces, just a regular dude, rah-rah-rah.
Meanwhile, what about girlboss Meghan? According to those who worked for her and lived to tell the tale, she was completely marvellous, too. No, really. Pass me that halo and let her duchessy love light shine.
Gushing staff tributes present the Duchess of Sussex as a Mother Teresa of munificence
For she was kind and thoughtful. She made great gourmet snacks. ‘Some of my favourite memories,’ said former Archewell president Mandana Dayani, who lasted 18 months until she left in 2022, ‘were during our weekly meetings in her Montecito home, where Meghan always served the most incredible lunches and her latest beautiful concoctions.’
I am imagining exquisite delicacies such as ‘vegetable soup’ and ‘green salad’, possibly even a delightful ‘egg‑based omelette’ sourced from the in-house rescue chickens.
As the Sussex staff detailed the positives for posterity, it was hard to determine the true nature of their relationship with their bosses. Attorney-client, doctor-patient, jailer-inmate, star-civilian, duchess-serf?
And was it my imagination or were the outpourings of these worker drones reminiscent of the rising hysteria of someone chained to a radiator in the basement of Archewell Towers, hoping to get home by Christmas?
According to their parti pris gibberish, Meghan was a Tinker Bell of titbits, a Mother Teresa of munificence; this gift-giving goddess who lavished staff with bow-tied presents and on-brand sharing and caring.
‘When I adopted my dog, the next day I had a luxury-brand leash and new collar on my doorstep,’ said one former staffer, who amusingly thought the gifts were for her pup.
‘They want to take care of us,’ one current employee told Us Weekly. ‘Meghan will do things like: ‘You mentioned on the call your skin is bothering you. I put together a kit for you.’
Is that being kind and helpful? Is that tending to the pimpled lame – or a tacit message to up their game?
For those of us who have spent a lifetime working in offices and assorted workplaces, alongside good bosses and bad, the thought of a superior sending you a tub of wrinkle cream or some self‑improving unguent, well, it just makes me want to die.
But listen, there is more. Meghan, said one staffer, is known for giving credit where it’s due.
Former Archewell president Mandana Dayani with the Duchess of Sussex in 2022
‘If you’re in a meeting and a great idea is referenced, she makes sure to give props [respect and appreciation] to the person who generated the idea,’ they said. ‘And after a big trip, every employee gets a personal email thanking them for their contribution in making it a success.’
An email! Oh, how lovely. Isn’t this low-level respect the very least a valued member of staff deserves?
These fawning responses in Us Weekly came in riposte to a damning article in The Hollywood Reporter, which stated that the Duchess’s ‘terrible behaviour’ was the root cause of the high turnover rate of staff at the couple’s Archewell company.
The report in the entertainment industry bible earlier this month claimed that many of those who work 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 reduced ‘grown men to tears’.
I should point out here that Us Weekly is to the Sussexes what Pravda was to Stalin and what The Guardian is to Labour MP Jess Phillips – a blaring bugle of uncritical support. So, we heard in great detail about Archewell team visits to the couple’s Montecito mansion, where Meghan gave everyone baskets of flowers, fruit and eggs to take home. So darling of her! She also passed on her children’s hand-me downs. Is there no end to her generosity?
One employee even told Us Weekly that despite Meghan’s reputation as a mini tyrant, they had ‘never’ heard her yell. Instead, the Duchess gave her staff ‘clear direction and is solution-oriented’ – which makes her sound like a rather lovely and amenable bottle of glue.
And when it came to hiring staff, another raving Archewell acolyte insisted that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex always ‘picked the best of the best from every field and watered the seeds for them to flourish’.
But what are Harry and Meghan growing for posterity out there in California – an Archewell empire or a damp squib? Seeds, solutions, eggs . . . what the hell is going on?
Of course, these accusations are nothing new to royal-watchers in the UK. The Duchess of Sussex has long been dogged by reports she promotes a toxic workplace environment, along with repeated accusations of what her lawyers insist to this day we must call ’difficult’ behaviour. In 2021, reports that the former actress had allegedly bullied and reduced staff members to tears at Kensington Palace were dismissed by the Sussexes as a smear. Yet it is no secret that the couple have lost 18 employees to date in their short time as a company entity in both the UK and the US.
One new American-based source blames ‘unbearable’ and ’condescending’ Meghan for the alarming ‘churn and burn’ rate. These rumours just won’t go away – but the big difference this time is that it is US news outlets that are making the claims.
Maer Roshan, co-editor-in-chief of The Hollywood Reporter, said he stands by the story after a backlash that included one Sussex source saying the claims were ‘fabricated’.
Former and current employees of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex rushed into print this week to big up their bosses
Roshan told Access Hollywood: ‘Our reporter talked to a very high-up source who works for the couple and said: ‘Everyone is terrified of Meghan.’
‘Duchess Difficult is a nickname that has trailed Meghan Markle for quite a few years. What is new is that this notion, since coming to America, that a lot of these rumours were manufactured by the Palace – the reporting that we did suggests that probably isn’t true and there is still this undercurrent of fear.’
Many of you might remember Prince Harry, in his high, tight, aggrieved voice, telling the world in his various documentaries and interviews that: ‘There is a hierarchy of the [Royal] Family. You know there is leaking, but there is also planting of stories.’
Even The Hollywood Reporter, a neutral observer, now raises an eyebrow at this. This is devastating for the couple whose reputation has survived so far by blaming their difficulties on the Royal Family and the British Press, instead of examining their own alleged bad behaviour.
Just a few issues ago in Us Weekly, the Duchess of Sussex was smoothing down the pleats on her kilt of no-guilt and telling everyone that she was opening ‘a chapter of joy’ in her life and that everything was hunky in her dory.
But now – yet again – the Sussexes are back at square one; expending time, energy, favours and friends in defending themselves against the indefensible.
We have been here before, we are back here again; swimming against this avalanche of bad press, slaloming though the snowdrifts of snark.
It makes me think, was this westward flight by the Sussexes – this bridge-burning journey into what they presumed would be a better, kinder world, patrolled by powerful friends such as Oprah and billionaire Tyler Perry – simply fuelled by a lust for praise and admiration that they felt was their due?
Yet no longer can Meghan and Harry present themselves to the world as a couple under siege, a pair of self-righteous smirkers who felt themselves to be the victims of racism and bullying.
The Hollywood Reporter has described them as ‘poor decision-makers’ who ‘change their minds frequently’, and added that Harry was a ‘very charming person’ but ‘very much an enabler’. The poor fool.
Duchess Difficult and the Enabling Prince? It sounds like a terrible Harry Potter novel, only now there is no magic spell to make this fresh stink vanish into the Californian air.
No matter how successful, adored and famous a pop star becomes, there will always be a grump in the corner moaning that they can’t see what all the fuss is about. Usually that grump is me, but not when it comes to Taylor Swift. I love Taylor’s songs and her admirable, demented work ethic, which crested this month with the release of two new albums — The Tortured Poets Department and The Anthology — both written, recorded and made while she is in the middle of her worldwide Eras tour, performing on stage for three straight hours at every show.
***
Read more at DailyMail.co.uk