Meghan Markle’s long list of bullying allegations IN FULL: The Duchess has for years been dogged by rumours of her ‘difficult’ behaviour while she was a royal, but they have now followed her to Hollywood – so here are all of them in order

Although it may sound grand, working for the Royal Family has never been for the faint-hearted. 

The hours are long, the pay is poor and the requirements of the job have caused many seasoned professionals to buckle under the extreme pressure. 

But one (ex) member of The Firm has faced the recurring accusation that they treated staff especially badly – Meghan Markle.

They started emerging soon after she officially joined the family in May 2018, leading to the now notorious nickname ‘Duchess Difficult’.

Meghan has always denied any bullying and described the accusations as an ‘orchestrated smear campaign against her’. 

Excuses were also made on her behalf –courtne perhaps she was simply a career-driven American whose manner and style was very different from British ways.

And maybe what appeared to be her unreasonable demands were simply a matter of things being lost in trans-Atlantic translation.

After all, one person’s bully is another person’s demanding boss.

But these swirling rumours have continued to follow her even after she moved to California to start her new life there with Prince Harry in 2020.

Here MailOnline looks back over Meghan’s long list of bullying allegations and goes through all of them in order.

The Royal Family 

When Meghan officially joined the Royal Family in May 2018 and entered Prince Harry’s office, things began to change quickly. 

The relaxed, easy-going atmosphere that many had found working for the bachelor Prince, rapidly became something entirely different. 

It didn’t take long for rumours about what was going on behind the scenes to leak out and into the Press.

The Daily Mail’s renowned royal expert Richard Kay reported in December 2018 that there were tensions with staff after it emerged that Meghan sometimes sent emails to them at 5am.

He detailed how junior employees at Kensington Palace had become wearily familiar with dawn emails and texts from the newly married Duchess of Sussex. 

Friends pointed out in her defence that she rose early because of the eight-hour time difference with California where her mother lives, making it easier to reach friends and family on the phone.

They also suggested that rising early might be connected to her pregnancy.

Even from those early days inside Buckingham Palace, waspish below-stairs staff jokily referred to Meghan and Harry as ‘Monica and Chandler’ after two of the characters in the long-running American sitcom Friends.

In the series, control freak Monica is played by Courteney Cox and amiable but weak Chandler by Matthew Perry.

A typical Monica quote was: ‘Remember: if I am harsh with you, it’s only because you’re doing it wrong.’

Meghan defenders said the turmoil was due to ‘cultural differences’ in management style. Americans, they suggested at the time, were more direct. 

But in the autumn of 2018, the developments took a sensational turn when Jason Knauf, the couple’s communications secretary at the time, submitted a formal complaint about the claims in an apparent bid to protect his staff. 

‘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 was totally unacceptable,’ he allegedly wrote.

‘The Duchess seems intent on always having someone in her sights. 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.’

But for two-and-a-half years, the bullying details remained secret. 

It was only after Harry and Meghan had quit royal life and moved to California that the allegations were made public. 

They were published in The Times just days before the couple sat down for their tell-all interview with America’s TV queen, Oprah Winfrey, in March 2021. 

One former employee told the newspaper that they had been personally ‘humiliated’ by the Duchess. 

It was claimed that staff would be reduced to tears with one aide telling a colleague in anticipation of a confrontation with the Duchess: ‘I can’t stop shaking.’

They said they were ‘terrified’ after a row about whether Meghan was told the media was attending one of her events. 

An aide was reported saying it felt ‘more like emotional cruelty and manipulation, which I guess could also be called bullying’.

The Times claimed that after Harry and Meghan became engaged in late 2017 a senior member of palace staff warned them about the problems they may have if staff were treated badly. Meghan allegedly replied: ‘It’s not my job to coddle people.’ 

Sources complained that little appeared to have been done by senior courtiers to address the complaints, despite allegations that ‘members of staff, particularly young women, were being bullied to the point of tears’. 

In response, representatives for the Duchess said that it was ‘being used by Buckingham Palace to peddle a wholly false narrative based on misleading and harmful misinformation’. 

Harry and Meghan’s spokesman said at the time: ‘Let’s just call this what it is – a calculated smear campaign based on misleading and harmful misinformation.’

Her lawyers said the former actress was ‘saddened by this latest attack on her character, particularly as someone who has been the target of bullying herself and is deeply committed to supporting those who have experienced pain and trauma’. 

There was also a statement to the media calling the bullying claims defamatory.

But years later, Mr Knauf finally broke his silence on the series of events, telling an Australian documentary in 2025: ‘I wouldn’t change anything’.

Although such was the concern at the time in 2021 that Buckingham Palace asked an external firm of solicitors to review the allegations.

On June 29, 2022, the Palace announced it had completed its review into the handling of the bullying allegations – but that it would stay secret. 

Expert Richard Kay wrote at the time the promise of transparency has been sacrificed in order to placate the couple at the heart of the sorry saga – Harry and Meghan. 

And although details from the investigation are limited, People reported that it did result in some shifts in HR policy, including creating new pathways for staff to whistleblow about ‘inappropriate’ working conditions.

Despite Meghan having left the The Firm in January 2020, the accusations about her behaviour have stuck around to haunt her.

Never in the recent history of the Royal Family has another senior royal woman – not the late Queen, Queen Camilla, Princesses Anne, Catherine or Sophie – been accused of bullying their staff. 

When Meghan and Harry moved to California, they hoped to turn over a new leaf and establish themselves as a brand in Hollywood – without the bullying allegations weighing them down.

But as things turned out, the rumours seemed to follow them there too. 

The Hollywood Reporter

When the Sussexes moved into their $14.7million mansion in the celebrity-heavy enclave of Montecito, they shared a long list of high-profile neighbours, including the popstar Katy Perry and talk show host Oprah Winfrey.

As she continued to build a life in the area, Meghan joined the neighbourhood mahjong group and was spotted stopping to speak to locals in the street. 

But after a few years in the gleaming Santa Barbara County for the rich and famous, once again rumours of Meghan’s bad behaviour leaked out.

And they didn’t come from anywhere but the celebrity bible The Hollywood Reporter, which published a groundbreaking story in September 2024.

The article went online on September 12, and was titled ‘Why Hollywood Keeps Quitting on Harry and Meghan’. 

A source claimed to the publication, which is known to be read by everyone in the showbiz industry, that: ‘Everyone’s terrified of Meghan. She belittles people, she doesn’t take advice.

‘They’re both poor decision-makers, they change their minds frequently. Harry is a very, very charming person – no airs at all – but he’s very much an enabler. And she’s just terrible.’

Another source said: ‘She’s absolutely relentless. She marches around like a dictator in high heels, fuming and barking orders. I’ve watched her reduce grown men to tears.’

The article also explored a recurring theme, which was also apparent when Meghan was part of the Royal Family – the constant churn of staff.

It pointed out that a slew of staff had made their excuses and left the employment of the Duchess over the past few years.

Former staff had even dubbed themselves the ‘Sussex Survivors Club’.

The Sussexes hit back, decrying the stories as malicious, with one source close to the couple telling US Weekly magazine: ‘These quotes were fabricated by someone lacking knowledge of our company.’ 

It quoted individuals who worked for Meghan that she was a good employer, considerate of her staff’s needs, giving them thoughtful gifts – including a dog collar for a member of staff who’d just got a pooch and babygrows her children Archie and Lilibet had outgrown. 

The royal author Valentine Low, who wrote about Meghan’s bullying accusations, told Newsweek: ‘It does have some glaring and fascinating echoes of everything I wrote, and that others have written before, about Meghan.

‘I don’t know about the truth of The Hollywood Reporter article but it seems to be a pattern that she is, depending on your point of view, either a demanding boss or a difficult one.

‘She clearly has certain standards but, on the other hand, the demands she makes of people may not always reflect what’s possible – she may demand too much.’

But although The Hollywood Reporter article raised alarm bells for the Sussexes, the worst was yet to come.

Vanity Fair 

As part of their plan to quit royal funding and instead make their own money, the Sussexes signed up for deals with music streaming giant Spotify and broadcaster Netflix.  

But the $20million multi-year Spotify deal came crashing down in 2023 after the Duke and Duchess made just 12 episodes of the Archetypes podcast in three years. 

In January 2025, the well-respected Vanity Fair magazine published a damning 8,000-word cover story about their new lives in California – which included more details of alleged harsh behaviour from Meghan.

According to two unnamed sources, after working on Archetypes, one colleague took a leave of absence following a three-episode stint. This was before they left Spotify’s studio Gimlet altogether.

It’s claimed others described ‘taking extended breaks from work to escape scrutiny, exiting their job or undergoing long-term therapy after working with Meghan’.

The source told the writer she felt that if Meghan chose to ‘acknowledge her own shortcomings or personal contributions to situations’ instead of adopting a perpetual victim role, her perception might be ‘better’.

Meanwhile, an individual who worked in media projects read claims of Meghan ‘bullying’ palace aids and said they could not imagine such behaviour really happened.

However, after working with the Duchess, the person allegedly changed their mind, thinking: ‘Oh, any given Tuesday this happened.’

One of Meghan’s former Spotify employees called her a ‘Mean Girls’ teenager’ while describing the ‘awful’ and ‘painful’ experience they had working with her.

The staffer said Markle began warm, encouraging and complimentary, but she’d ‘become cold and withholding toward the person she perceived to be responsible’ if she didn’t get her own way.

UK royal correspondent Neil Sean claimed to Fox News in January that the Duchess of Sussex was given the nickname ‘Eva’ while she was working on her podcast Archetypes.

He explained: ‘This wasn’t an engaging pet nickname. The nickname came from the 1955 camp classic ‘Queen Bee’ starring the ultimate diva herself – Joan Crawford…

‘This is because, like the Joan character [Eva Phillips], she stung her victims to pieces. This is exactly how staff felt about working alongside [Meghan].’

The film is about a ‘manipulative’ socialite who ‘sets out to destroy the lives of all those around her’, according to Turner Classic Movies.

Mr Sean also explained that behind-the-scenes staff found it ‘really difficult’ to deal with Meghan because of her mood swings and that she was ‘quite tough and bossy’.

He claimed sources told him that Meghan only wanted ‘to speak to the person at the top’ when she worked alongside them. 

Meghan and Harry refused to comment on the Vanity Fair story. 

What have Meghan and Harry said over the years to address the allegations?

In response to the slew of allegations that have been made against Meghan over the years, she has issued a number of official statements denying them at the time.

Usually she and Harry disavow them and claim there has been an orchestrated smear campaign against her.

In Meghan’s eyes, she seems to be the victim – in 2020, for instance, she told the Teenager Therapy podcast: ‘I was the most trolled person in the entire world, male or female, and it was ‘almost unsurvivable’.’ 

And in October 2024, never seemingly shy of stealing the limelight, she talked to a group of young girls at an event supposedly focussing on their empowerment on social media about what it’s like to be ‘one of the most bullied people in the world’. 

Defending her management of people, the Sussex-friendly authors Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand wrote in their 2020 book Finding Freedom: ‘Americans can be much more direct, and that often doesn’t sit well in the much more refined institution of the monarchy.’ 

Meghan seemed to back this version of events up in an October 2024 episode of her Archetypes podcast, when she spoke about the challenges she has faced asserting herself in professional situations.

She said: ‘I find myself cowering and tiptoeing into a room and – the thing I find most embarrassing – when you’re saying a sentence and the intonation goes up, like it’s a question. 

‘And you’re like, “Oh my God, stop like whispering and tiptoeing around it”. Just say what it is that you need. You’re allowed to set a boundary. 

‘You’re allowed to be clear, it doesn’t make you demanding. It doesn’t make you difficult, it makes you clear.’

However by far the most thorough response to Meghan’s bullying claims came in Harry’s memoir Spare in January 2023.

In the book, he described the building tension in their office behind the scenes, writing: ‘Our staff sensed the friction, read the Press, and thus there was frequent bickering around the office. 

‘Sides were taken. Team Cambridge versus Team Sussex. Rivalry, jealousy, competing agendas – it all poisoned the atmosphere. It didn’t help that everyone was working around the clock. 

‘There were so many demands from the Press, such a constant stream of errors that needed clearing up, and we didn’t have nearly enough people or resources. At best we were able to address 10 per cent of what was out there. 

‘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.’ 

Later in the book, Harry also addressed the moment when the allegations of Meghan’s bullying first became public.

He wrote: ‘Meg was apparently a bully – that was the latest vicious campaign they’d helped orchestrate. 

‘It was so shocking, so egregious, that even after Meg and I demolished their lie with a twenty-five-page, evidence-filled report to Human Resources, I was going to have trouble simply shrugging that one off. 

‘A month earlier Meg and I had done an interview with Oprah Winfrey. (Days before it aired, those Meg-is-a-bully stories started popping up in the papers – what a coincidence!) 

‘Since leaving Britain, the attacks on us had been increasing exponentially. We had to try something to make it stop. Being silent wasn’t working. It was only making it worse. We felt we had no choice.’

Meghan and Harry have also used more traditional methods of rubbishing the ‘bullying’ narrative and instead trying to propagate the view that the Duchess was a kind boss.

In the Sussex-friendly US Magazine in September 2024 current and former staffers flooded in with statements of support. 

‘Best bosses I have ever had,’ one current team member wrote, while an ex-staffer added that their time with the Sussexes was ‘truly an honor.’ 

The publication also described the staff getting handed freebies, which included flowers and care packages. 

And following the release of her recent Netflix series, With Love, Meghan, the Duchess appears to be taking a more careful approach when it comes to her treatment of staff. 

She told the US publication People that she had fun sharing the delicious food she was cooking in the kitchen with the crew – praising the process as ‘communal’.

Netflix crew members who were involved with the production praised Meghan’s approach to treating them and described her as a ‘great hostess’. 

They also revealed that she bought each crew member a sauté-style fry pan from the brand Our Place, which retails for over £80, as well as a handwritten monogrammed spoon that read, ‘Thank you, crew’. 

Amidst the pile of contradicting evidence, ultimately, the only people who really know the truth about Meghan’s behaviour are the staff who worked with her.