Prince Harry Reveals Weeping Staff and Why Meghan Markle's PA Quit

Prince Harry described how "nerves were shattering, people were sniping" among palace staff during the tumultuous time before Meghan Markle was accused of being "difficult" to work for.

The Duke of Sussex addressed the bullying allegations against Meghan in his book Spare, released on Tuesday, and acknowledged: "More than once a staff member slumped across their desk and wept."

Meghan was accused of bullying two PAs out of the royal household in an internal email sent by Jason Knauf, then Kensington Palace communications secretary.

The email, originally sent in October 2018, was leaked in the U.K. press days before the Oprah Winfrey interview, in March 2021, in a move the couple's spokesperson described at the time as a "smear."

Harry wrote: "She was also said to have driven our assistant to quit; in fact that assistant was asked to resign by Palace HR after we showed them evidence she'd traded on her position with Meg to get freebies. But because we couldn't speak publicly about the reasons for the assistant's departure, rumors filled the void."

Harry described "frequent bickering around the office" in which "sides were taken. Team Cambridge versus Team Sussex," in a section of the book that appeared to come before Jason's email, though dates were not given.

He wrote: "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 percent 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."

He added: "Meg managed to remain calm. Despite what certain people were saying about her, I never heard her speak a bad word about anybody, or to anybody.

"On the contrary, I watched her redouble her efforts to reach out, to spread kindness."

While Harry denied the bullying allegations, there is clearly no love lost between him and some palace staff, including one he did not name but referred to as "The Fly" because in Government he "spent much of his career adjacent to and, indeed drawn to, s***."

Prince William's private secretary at the time, and the man Knauf emailed his bullying allegations to, was Simon Case, who had arrived at the palace after serving in David Cameron and Theresa May's government.

Harry wrote: "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—they seemed addicted to it.

"They had a knack for backstabbing, a talent for intrigue, and they were constantly setting our two groups of staff against each other."

He wrote: "The fly had spent much of his career adjacent to and, indeed drawn to, s***. The offal of government and media, the wormy entrails, he loved it, grew fat on it, rubbed his hands in glee over it, though he pretended otherwise."

Harry nicknamed another staffer "The Wasp" because "he seemed so weedy, so self-effacing, you might be tempted to push back, insist on your point, and that was when he'd put you on his list.

"A short time later, without warning, he'd give you such a stab with his outsized stinger that you'd cry in confusion. Where the f*** did that come from?"

Knauf's October 2018 email came after a tour of Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific, which he previously described to Oprah Winfrey as a turning point moment in their relations with the family after which things broke down.

Harry wrote: "She was so brilliant that midway through the tour I felt compelled ... to warn her.

"'You're doing too well, my love. Too damn well. You're making it look too easy. This is how everything started ... with my mother.'

"Maybe I sounded mad, paranoid. Bet everyone knew that Mummy's situation went from bad to worse when she showed the world, showed the family, that she was better at touring, better at connecting with people, better at being 'royal,' than she had any right to be."

Knauf's email sent after the couple returned to Britain and later published in U.K. broadsheet The Times, read: "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," Knauf continued. "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]."

The journalist who leaked that email, Valentine Low, published a book about palace staff called Courtiers in 2022.

It quoted an unnamed aide who described one incident they said took place on a Friday night while the employee was out for dinner: "Every ten minutes, I had to go outside to be screamed at by her and Harry. It was, 'I can't believe you've done this. You've let me down. What were you thinking?' It went on for a couple of hours."

They added: "You could not escape them. There were no lines or boundaries: it was last thing at night, first thing in the morning."