Celeb Chai Editorial | February 21, 2026
A new book by royal correspondent Russell Myers, promoted on February 20, 2026 by Hello Magazine, recounts a July 2018 meeting between the Wales and Sussex households and presents unnamed palace sources characterizing Meghan as responsible for staff departures and a toxic workplace atmosphere. The story is being amplified across social media as evidence of established wrongdoing. There is a significant problem with that framing: Buckingham Palace conducted a formal investigation into exactly these allegations, and it cleared Meghan’s name. That outcome, and what it means for how we should read these recurring source-driven stories, deserves a clear accounting.
1. The Origin of the Allegations
On March 1, 2021, The Times published allegations that Meghan had bullied palace staff, citing a complaint made in October 2018 by Jason Knauf, the couple’s then-communications secretary, who had sent an email to William’s private secretary Simon Case alleging Meghan had driven out two personal assistants.[1] The timing was notable: the story appeared five days before the Sussex-Oprah interview was due to air.[1]
Meghan’s team responded on the record immediately, describing the newspaper as being used by Buckingham Palace to peddle a false narrative and calling the allegations a calculated smear campaign based on misleading and harmful misinformation.[3] Buckingham Palace simultaneously announced it would open an investigation.[2]
2. What the Investigation Found — and What It Did Not
On June 29, 2022, Buckingham Palace confirmed the investigation had concluded. Palace officials stated the details of the independent review would not be released, citing the confidentiality of those who took part.[4]
A critical distinction, confirmed by BuzzFeed News based on the Palace’s own official statement, is that the investigation did not examine whether Meghan had bullied staff. It examined how the Palace had handled the complaints when they were made.[5] The Palace stated HR policies had been updated but declined to say what the changes were. Those who participated were not informed of the findings.[15]
A source speaking on behalf of Meghan told Us Weekly: ‘Meghan is a fair boss and never bullied anyone who worked for her at the Palace in the first place. She’s happy that her name has been cleared from the defamatory claims.’[6]
Additionally, the updated epilogue of Finding Freedom, the authorized biography by Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand, reported that two of the individuals named in the original Knauf complaint asked for any HR allegations about their experiences with Meghan to be rescinded.[7]
3. The Institutional Position of the Complaint’s Author
Jason Knauf, who filed the October 2018 complaint, did not submit it through neutral channels. He sent the email to Prince William’s private secretary Simon Case. Following the complaint, Knauf remained at Kensington Palace aligned with the Wales household. He was subsequently appointed CEO of the Royal Foundation (the Cambridges’ charitable organization) and later became a trustee and then CEO of William’s Earthshot Prize — a role he holds to the present day.[8]
In November 2021, Knauf provided a witness statement to the Court of Appeal in Meghan’s privacy case against the Mail on Sunday, submitting evidence about the Finding Freedom biography against her interests. Sussex lawyer Jenny Afia stated publicly: ‘When we were just about to go to the Court of Appeal a senior member of the Duke of Cambridge’s team came forward to give this witness statement which wasn’t required, and sadly there’s no way he could have done this without the authority of his bosses.’[10]
In his memoir Spare, Harry described the atmosphere at the shared Kensington Palace office in 2018 and stated directly that William blamed Meghan for all of it, telling him so several times, while Harry argued William was repeating a press narrative and that the real dysfunction came from staff William had imported with backgrounds in government who were setting the two households against each other.[9]
4. The Evidentiary Standard Being Applied
No named member of palace staff has ever testified publicly about mistreatment by Meghan. The allegations circulating since 2021 — and recycled in this week’s book promotion cycle — are sourced to anonymous palace sources. The Palace’s own investigation into those allegations concluded without making any findings public and without confirming that the original allegations were substantiated.
The social media thread amplifying this week’s Hello article included a commenter, Naledi, who raised exactly this evidentiary point: an officer had spoken publicly about Prince Andrew’s bullying with specific examples, while no equivalent named public testimony exists regarding Meghan. That asymmetry has not changed in the years since the original allegations.
The book being promoted this week relies on unnamed palace sources — the same sourcing mechanism that generated the original 2021 allegations, which the Palace’s own investigation could not affirm publicly, and which two of the named individuals subsequently asked to have rescinded.[7]
5. The Court Record: What Judges Actually Found
In February 2021, Mr Justice Warby of the High Court granted Meghan summary judgment in her privacy case against Associated Newspapers, publisher of the Mail on Sunday. The judge ruled that publication of her letter to her father was manifestly excessive and hence unlawful, and that Meghan had a reasonable expectation that the contents of the letter would remain private.[11]
The Mail on Sunday appealed. In December 2021, the Court of Appeal, comprising Sir Geoffrey Vos, Dame Victoria Sharp, and Lord Justice Bean, dismissed the appeal and upheld the original ruling. The court found that the contents of the letter were personal, private, and not matters of legitimate public interest, and that the newspaper’s public interest defence did not apply.[12][13]
The Mail on Sunday was ordered to print a front page statement acknowledging the legal judgment and to pay Meghan’s legal costs. As Meghan stated: ‘Today, the courts ruled in my favor — again — cementing that The Mail on Sunday has broken the law.’[12]
When a pattern of coverage has been found by courts to include unlawful conduct, the appropriate analytical response is to apply greater scrutiny to anonymous-source stories within that same coverage ecosystem — not less.
6. The Timing Function of This Coverage Cycle
This book promotion article was published on February 20, 2026 — one day after Prince Andrew’s arrest on suspicion of misconduct in public office. That arrest represents the most significant accountability crisis the British royal institution has faced in living memory, and directly implicates decades of institutional decisions to protect Andrew.
Within that context, the renewed circulation of Meghan-adjacent staff complaint narratives performs a specific function. Multiple commenters in the social media thread amplifying the article named this function explicitly in real time, including one who asked directly: ‘Wonder if it’s distracting folks from the pedo, rapist and implicated murderer, Andrew? That’s the point, right?’
The Sussex Royal statement from January 2020, cited in the very Hello Magazine article being promoted, described stepping back from royal life as removing the supposed public interest justification for media intrusion into their lives.[14] That word ‘supposed’ was a legally precise formulation. The Court of Appeal subsequently confirmed, in December 2021, that the public interest justification for intrusion into Meghan’s private life had not in fact existed.[12]
The verified factual record contains: a Palace investigation that concluded without affirming the original allegations and whose findings remain sealed; two individuals who asked for their HR complaints to be rescinded; a court judgment at High Court level finding tabloid coverage unlawful; a Court of Appeal judgment upholding that finding; documented institutional alignment between the complaint’s author and the Wales household; and zero named witnesses who have testified publicly to mistreatment.
The narrative circulating this week contains: unnamed palace sources in a forthcoming book, recounting events from 2018, promoted the day after Andrew’s arrest.
Readers are entitled to know which of those two records is being presented as settled fact, and which remains, at best, contested allegation.
SOURCES
[1] The Times, 1 March 2021: ‘Meghan accused of bullying palace staff.’ Original allegations published five days before the Oprah interview.
[2] Buckingham Palace statement, March 2021: ‘Our HR team will look into the circumstances outlined in the article. Members of staff involved at the time, including those who have left the Household, will be invited to participate to see if lessons can be learned.’
[3] Sussex spokesperson statement to The Times, March 2021: ‘Let’s just call this what it is — a calculated smear campaign based on misleading and harmful misinformation.’
[4] NBC Connecticut / Hollywood Reporter, 30 June 2022: Buckingham Palace confirmed the investigation had concluded. Palace officials told reporters the details of the independent review would not be released to protect the confidentiality of those who took part.
[5] BuzzFeed News, 30 June 2022: ‘The official statement makes clear that the report was not investigating whether or not Meghan bullied Palace employees; it was a review of how the Palace responded to bullying complaints when they were made.’
[6] Us Weekly, July 2022, via Marie Claire and Evie Magazine: Sussex source stated ‘Meghan is a fair boss and never bullied anyone who worked for her at the Palace in the first place. She’s happy that her name has been cleared from the defamatory claims.’
[7] Finding Freedom epilogue (Scobie & Durand, 2021), via Grazia Magazine: ‘Two of the individuals mentioned in the email asked for any allegations made to HR about their experiences with Meghan be rescinded.’
[8] Newsweek, timeline of Jason Knauf, December 2022: Knauf filed his October 2018 complaint to William’s then-private secretary Simon Case, not directly to HR. He subsequently remained at Kensington Palace aligned with the Wales household. He was later named CEO of the Royal Foundation (2019-2021) and Earthshot Prize trustee and CEO (2022-present).
[9] Harry, Prince of Wales. Spare. Random House, 2023. Harry writes: ‘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 real villains were the people he’d imported into the office, people from government… They had a knack for backstabbing, a talent for intrigue, and they were constantly setting our two groups of staff against each other.’
[10] Harry & Meghan, Netflix documentary series, December 2022. Jenny Afia, Sussex lawyer, states: ‘When we were just about to go to the Court of Appeal a senior member of the Duke of Cambridge’s team came forward to give this witness statement which wasn’t required, and sadly there’s no way he could have done this without the authority of his bosses.’
[11] Mr Justice Warby, High Court, February 2021: Summary judgment granted in Meghan’s favour. The judge ruled publication was ‘manifestly excessive and hence unlawful.’ The Mail on Sunday’s articles ‘copied a large and important proportion of the work’s original literary content.’ (ITV News, Hello Magazine, February 11, 2021.)
[12] Court of Appeal, December 2021: Sir Geoffrey Vos, Dame Victoria Sharp and Lord Justice Bean upheld the original ruling. The court found ‘the Duchess had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of the letter. Those contents were personal, private and not matters of legitimate public interest.’ (NPR, Variety, Newsweek, December 2-3, 2021.)
[13] The Conversation (legal analysis), December 2021: ‘The court also disagreed with ANL’s submission that the use of material from the letter was in the public interest. So the Court of Appeal ruled that none of these defences applied and upheld Warby’s judgment.’
[14] Sussex Royal website statement, January 2020, cited in Hello Magazine article, February 20, 2026: Harry and Meghan stated they were stepping back to ‘live a more independent life as a family, by removing the supposed public interest justification for media intrusion into their lives.’
[15] The Week, 30 June 2022: ‘The decision leaves the palace embroiled in a secrecy row and raises serious questions about transparency at the publicly funded institution and its responsibility towards members of staff.’ The Telegraph reported that even those who participated in the investigation were ‘kept in the dark about its findings.’
Celeb Chai analyzes media manipulation patterns and institutional power dynamics in celebrity and royal coverage.
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