Meghan Markle issued an unprecedented public statement on the departure of her global press secretary just weeks after a major fightback against allegations her staff are “terrified” of her.
Ashley Hansen quit as global press secretary to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex to start her own PR firm. She will continue to advise the couple, but has also already taken on other clients through her new company Three Gates Strategies.
The timing is awkward as it comes in the aftermath of an article in The Hollywood Reporter quoting a senior current staff member who described Meghan as a “dictator in high heels” who belittles people.
It was headlined “Why Hollywood Keeps Quitting on Harry and Meghan,” and followed historic allegations that Meghan bullied her staff while at Kensington Palace in 2018.
Hansen was also at the center of a PR fightback in the pages of Us Weekly, in which she praised her bosses for treating her like a parent would treat a child.
Meghan Markle (left) in Los Angeles on October 5, 2024. Ashley Hansen (right). The Sussexes’ former global press secretary is going freelance through her own company.
Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and Jenna Jones
What Meghan Markle Said About Ashley Hansen
The duchess released a public statement, including to Newsweek, to accompany Hansen’s decision to go freelance, in a move not seen in relation to previous departures. For example, there was no such public comment when Hansen’s predecessor Toya Holness quit in 2022.
Meghan said: “We are so proud of Ashley, especially as a female entrepreneur. We look forward to having her focused expertise on our business and creative projects and her continued oversight of our communications team.
“My husband and I are excited to be alongside Ashley as she builds something extraordinarily special with her firm.”
The statement was issued alongside another from Hansen which read: “I am incredibly grateful to the Duke and Duchess for their continued trust in me.
“Their unwavering support and belief in my new firm has been meaningful and is a testament to their leadership.
“I knew when they first hired me that they were giving me the opportunity of a lifetime and I couldn’t be happier to continue working together.”
What Meghan’s Statement Shows
The inevitable media reaction to Hansen’s departure was always going to be the suggestion this was new evidence of Meghan being a difficult boss.
And it is particularly striking so soon after Hansen gave such a glowing tribute to the couple to Us Weekly that she has chosen to take a separate path which inevitably must involve working with them less since they will not be her only clients.
Hansen told Us Weekly she previously needed time off for major surgery and added: “When I told them, I was met with the kind of concern and care a parent would express if it were their own child.”
“Two things can be equally true: you can be a great leader and still have turnover. No boss or company is immune to that,” she added.
Meghan’s public show of affection for her departing press secretary can therefore be read as a desire to demonstrate there is no ill will in the departure.
But in turn, that can be added to a body of evidence that the Sussexes are becoming increasingly concerned about the bullying allegations against Meghan.
The decision to mount a fightback using Us Weekly, rather than simply ignoring The Hollywood Reporter‘s story, itself raised eyebrows.
And now there has been a clear move by them to get ahead of the stories about Hansen’s departure rather than reacting after the fact.
Background to the Bullying Allegations
Meghan was first accused of bullying two PAs out of Kensington Palace in March 2021 when an internal email dating back to October 2018 was leaked to U.K. broadsheet The Times.
Jason Knauf, then communications secretary, wrote: “I am very concerned that the duchess was able to bully two PAs out of the household in the past year. The treatment of X [name removed] was totally unacceptable.”
“The Duchess seems intent on always having someone in her sights. She is bullying Y [name removed] and seeking to undermine her confidence. We have had report after report from people who have witnessed unacceptable behavior towards Y [name removed].”
At the time it was published in 2021, Meghan’s then spokesperson went on the record to describe the leak as a smear campaign ahead of her Oprah Winfrey interview.
There had been stories nicknaming Meghan “Duchess Difficult” as far back as December 2018 but what was implicit at the time became explicit and on the record with the publication of the email.
However, The Hollywood Reporter‘s article saw the fallout spread from Meghan’s time at the palace to her U.S. operation.
The magazine’s editor told Access Hollywood: “‘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 rumors were manufactured by the palace and the reporting that we did suggests that probably isn’t true and there is still this undercurrent of fear.”
Meanwhile, in his book, Spare, Harry acknowledged problems at the palace, but pinned the blame elsewhere: “Nerves were shattering, people were sniping. In such a climate there was no such thing as constructive criticism. All feedback was seen as an affront, an insult.
“More than once a staff member slumped across their desk and wept. For all this, every bit of it, Willy blamed one person. Meg. He told me so several times, and he got cross when I told him he was out of line.
“He was just repeating the press narrative, spouting fake stories he’d read or been told. The great irony, I told him, was that the real villains were the people he’d imported into the office, people from government, who didn’t seem impervious to this kind of strife—but addicted to it.”
Jack Royston is chief royal correspondent for Newsweek, based in London. You can find him on X, formerly Twitter, at @jack_royston and read his stories on Newsweek‘s The Royals Facebook page.
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