Former palace aid breaks silence on Meghan bullying claims

The Duchess of Sussex’s senior royal official Samantha Cohen has broken cover on the explosive bullying claims that first rocked Kensington Palace in 2021 and still reverberate today.

Ms Cohen, a loyal and longstanding former palace aide, has confirmed to an Australian newspaper that she was, indeed, among those interviewed by the Palace in the wake of complaints about the duchess’s alleged aggressive behaviour.

A small step forward, you might think, but a significant one when it comes to an episode which officials have so far swept under the carpet.

Samantha Cohen is not just any courtier, after all. An intelligent, charming Australian, she had been working with the late Queen for 20 years when she was asked to undertake a challenging new assignment.

In 2017, Ms Cohen agreed to help the newly engaged Meghan acclimatise to the royal family and life in Kensington Palace.

Her task was to persuade an ambitious, outspoken Californian actress to embrace the royal family’s immutable hierarchy and rigid protocols.

Perhaps it was a tall order. Certainly, I believe that Ms Cohen was exasperated, within six months or so, and that Meghan either disagreed with, or failed to understand, the nonnegotiable elements of royalty.

I also believe members of Samantha Cohen’s team viewed this as an irresponsible self-indulgence.

Both sides would blame a clash of cultures.

Could a 36-year-old with such a profile adopt the British propensity for understatement?

Could she ditch Hollywood’s hyperbole in favour of the Palace’s low-key, repetitive “no comment”?

It seems not.

A year later, after Harry and Meghan’s glorious May wedding in Windsor, Ms Cohen was in a mood to resign.

According to Valentine Low’s book Courtiers: The Hidden Power Behind The Crown, Ms Cohen complained behind the scenes that she’d been “treated harshly” and likened the job to “working with teenagers”.

She doesn’t go quite so far in her conversation with the Herald Sun, but Ms Cohen does say that she stayed in her role three times as long as she had planned – because officials struggled to find a replacement for her.

And that, intriguingly, when a new private secretary was eventually found, that person quit during Harry and Meghan’s tour of Africa in 2019.

The Herald Sun quotes Ms Cohen as saying: “I was only supposed to stay for six months but stayed for 18 – we couldn’t find a replacement for me and when we did, we took them on tour to Africa with Harry and Meghan to show them the ropes, but they left as well while in Africa.”

She also confirmed that she was one of the courtiers who was interviewed following a bullying complaint raised by Harry and Meghan’s communications secretary Jason Knauf in 2018 – first revealed by The Times in 2020.

It became clear that three women had formally told Mr Knauf that Meghan was “allegedly” bullying them.

And that, as the complaints accumulated, Mr Knauf put together a file.

According to leaked email correspondence, Mr Knauf alleged to the Palace’s human resources department that Meghan had bullied two PAs “out of the household” within the space of a year and was targeting other female staff.

Mr Knauf noted that one departing member of staff said her encounters with Meghan made her “feel sick”.

“I can’t stop shaking” was another comment cited, and “I feel terrified”.

The correspondence suggested that Mr Knauf was concerned about Ms Cohen, indicating that she was experiencing extreme “stress”.

The Sussexes have vigorously denied the allegations.

When the bullying claims first emerged, representatives for Meghan said that she rejected them as the “latest attack on her character”.

They said it was particularly unfair when the duchess had been the “target of bullying herself and is deeply committed to supporting those who have experienced pain and trauma”.

In his best-selling memoir Spare, published in January last year, Harry railed against the claims, saying: “it was so outrageous that even though Meg and I demonstrated their lie with a 25-page report to human resources full of evidence, it was going to be very hard for me to ignore it.”

The final report by the Palace was kept private to protect those taking part, but there is no doubt that there was a growing mood of concern – or that the row was becoming personal.

As I record in my book Revenge, William told Harry that Meghan’s behaviour was unacceptable and that Ms Cohen and others had become suspicious that Meghan had never intended to give up her career and become a loyal member of the family.

Did Meghan want to return to America, William wondered?

As their conversation became heated, William mentioned staff complaints about being bullied by Meghan.

Harry was outraged – but the accusations, justified or not, were a matter of fact.

So was a certain level of staff turnover.

Katrina Mckeever, a member of Kate’s communications team, had recently resigned.

Kate believed her departure had been provoked by Meghan’s criticism of her performance in the run-up to the wedding.

Meghan denied she had been critical, supposedly saying: “It’s not my job to coddle people,” according to The Times.

Ms Mckeever’s grievances had been echoed by others to Jason Knauf.

Melissa Toubati, another personal assistant, also resigned. according to reports, Ms Toubati was allegedly “traumatised” by Meghan’s unreasonable behaviour to meet her “unattainably precise demands”.

Her departure was blamed on a tirade from Meghan, angry that embroidered blankets for guests at a shooting weekend were not the right shade of red.

The Sussexes were said not to be disappointed by Ms Toubati’s departure, but disagreed about the reasons for it.

On Oprah in 2021, Meghan told a worldwide audience that, not only had palace officials done little to protect her, they had gone so far as to conspire against her and Harry.

Such a claim will have been disappointing to Ms Cohen and other former staff, because they believed they had worked tirelessly to help the couple.

It is hugely unfortunate that the bullying complaints have resulted in no resolution.

To date, the palace lawyer’s investigation remains under lock and key. It is a situation which is hard on the accusers – and unfair to the accused.

Jason Knauf’s leaked email correspondence has given us a starting point, but until a few days ago, Ms Cohen and fellow Palace staff had remained silent.

Now, finally, that dam has been breached – and I have no doubt that more will now emerge.

The trickle of information will, soon enough, become a stream.

That’s not to prejudge the matter or say what the verdict will be. But it’s very much to the Palace’s discredit that, whatever truth we arrive at, it should have to emerge in this painful and unsatisfactory way.