The ticking timebomb that could blow up under Meghan Markle and derail her new rebrand… from a former aide, writes AMANDA PLATELL
Is it a coincidence that almost a week before the delayed Netflix launch of the Duchess of Sussex’s new make-or-break ‘With Love, Meghan’ lifestyle series the couple’s former royal aide Jason Knauf has spoken out in an interview for the first time?
Whatever the case, that he has talked in public at all suggests he might be a ticking timebomb that could one day detonate under Meghan’s self-appointed fabulousness.
Knauf was a senior aide and close to the royal couple – he was responsible for overseeing what he described as their ‘magical’ £32 million wedding in May 2018.
That same year, in October, he sent an email to Prince William’s private secretary after allegations from royal staff about Meghan’s behaviour.
In it, he raised concerns about Meghan’s alleged poor treatment of staff: ‘I am very concerned that the Duchess was able to bully two PAs out of the household in the past year,’ he wrote. ‘The treatment of X was totally unacceptable.’
‘The Duchess seems intent on “always having someone in her sights”, indicating a vindictiveness,’ he added. ‘She is bullying Y and seeking to undermine her confidence. We have had report after report from people who have witnessed unacceptable behaviour towards Y’.
After details of the email were leaked, Buckingham Palace launched an investigation by an independent QC, inviting testimony from those who’d worked for Meghan and Harry.
The result was a secret ‘bullying dossier’ that was apparently buried by the Palace never to see the light of day.
Jason Knauf was a senior aide and close to the royal couple – he was responsible for overseeing what he described as their ‘magical’ £32 million wedding in May 2018
Yet now, in a TV interview on Australia’s most prestigious investigative programme 60 Minutes, Knauf appears to suggest it was right to send the email that prompted the investigation and the ‘bullying dossier’.
He said in his TV interview that he wishes the Sussexes and their ‘lovely family’ well, but that he ‘wouldn’t change a thing’ and has ‘no regrets’. He clearly seems to have thought that Meghan had been bullying staff.
Even the late Queen’s most trusted adviser Samantha Cohen – who Her Majesty had gifted to Meghan in the early days to help her adapt to royal life – left suddenly without explanation. In April last year she spoke briefly to an Australian news outlet confirming that she had spoken to the QC leading the internal review.
The question is why did the Palace never publish the investigation? Particularly when Prince Philip nicknamed Meghan The Duchess of Windsor in a ‘barbed remark, with a wealth of subtext’, according to royal biographer Ingrid Seward.
Almost certainly because at that time the future King Charles and his ailing mother the late Queen were desperate to keep the fragile peace between the Sussexes and the royals. It’s surely why the dossier was buried.
Trouble is that, as we have learnt from the royals’ previous attempts to keep their messy personal lives secret – Charles’s affair with Camilla, Diana’s affair with James Hewitt – ticking timebombs have a habit of exploding in their faces when least expected.
Insiders believe it is inconceivable that Knauf – who worked happily with William and Kate – would have spoken on TV without at the very least William’s tacit agreement.
Especially as in his interview Knauf is full of praise for Prince William, saying of the terrible breakdown of his relationship with Harry that William was both ‘hard and sad’, adding rather scorchingly that he had chosen to be ‘private’ about it.
Knauf (back left) with Meghan and Harry
Was this a clear dig at Harry who went on the make millions out of his alleged grievances against the royals and the appalling way they had treated his ‘suicidal’ wife? A wife who pleaded ‘not just to survive but thrive’?
Again, can it really be pure coincidence that Knauf’s interview has resurrected, however obliquely, the ugly spectre of Meghan’s alleged bullying by saying he had ‘no regrets’? On the eve of her Netflix comeback?
Remember that the first significant leaks of Megs’ alleged bullying appeared not long before Harry and Meghan’s vile Oprah Winfrey interview where she accused the royals of being racists.
And the response from the Sussexes’ spokesperson to those bullying allegations back then? They were just a ‘calculated smear campaign based on misleading information and harmful disinformation’, with friends of Megs briefing that it was all down to racism and jealousy of her because she outshone all the other royals put together.
They also made a statement to the media suggesting the bullying claims were defamatory.
If so, one must ask why the Sussexes didn’t sue. Harry is quick to resort to the courts over his personal security, over allegations of being phone hacked, so why didn’t he sue over the reputation of his sweet wife?
Because if he had, it would have come to court and the young women known only as of now as X and Y might have given evidence. What a damaging spectacle that would have been for Meghan, face-to-face with the testimony of young women who claim they were hounded out by her.
As proof of Jason Knauf’s integrity and closeness to Prince William, after Megxit he went on to become a special adviser to him and Kate and then the chief executive of the Royal Foundation, the charitable arm of their official operations.
He was also made a Lieutenant of the Royal Victorian Order by the Prince of Wales at Windsor Castle in 2023, tellingly saying that it was ‘the honour of his lifetime to work for the Prince and Princess of Wales’.
Yet for all his closeness to Prince William, Jason Knauf remains the keeper of perhaps the most devastating secrets of modern royal history – he knows about Meghan’s alleged bullying of two women at a time when she was parading herself as a feminist.
He could turn out to be a ticking timebomb for self-appointed saint Meghan. The bomb hasn’t exploded yet but it might one day, and not a moment too soon.
