'High-Heeled Hitler': Meghan Markle Branded 'Duchess Difficult' Who 'Rants at Staff Like Dictator' and is 'Hooked on Crazed Email Abuse'
Sept. 16 2024, Published 11:58 a.m. ET
As yet another staff member departs, a new exposé revealed why Prince Harry and Meghan Markle seemingly cannot keep people on their team.
RadarOnline.com can reveal Josh Kettler, who served as the chief of staff for Harry, 40, and Meghan, 43, is the latest former staffer to be inducted into the "Sussex Survivors Club" as Meghan has been dubbed "Duchess Difficult".
Before Kettler, global press secretary Toya Holness left in 2022. PR head Christine Weil Schirmer and Meghan’s top aide and private secretary, Samantha Cohen, departed in 2021.
PR firm Sunshine Sachs partner Keleigh Thomas Morgan first began repping Meghan when she starred on Suits and later took on Harry has a client when the couple moved to California. She then dropped the couple as clients in 2020.
Other members of the "Survivors Club" include Catherine St-Laurent, who only lasted a year as head of their charity Archewell; Archewell COO Mandana Dayani; content chief Ben Browning (who got Harry and Meghan’s documentary on Netflix); and marketing chief Fara Taylor.
According to a source close to the couple, the alleged reason Harry and Meghan cannot keep people on their staff is said to boil down to the Duchess of Sussex's treatment of employees.
A source told the Hollywood Reporter: "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."
It should be noted that HR says they spoke to "a dozen people", "who have worked very closely with the couple" for their story.
This is not the first time Meghan has been accused of being terrible to the staff employed to help her. In 2018, while still a working member of the royal family, her treatment of two royal aides prompted Buckingham Palace to investigate her for "bullying behavior".
At the time, the then-princess denounced the effort as a "calculated smear campaign".
The results of the investigation have never been released.
Meghan's stateside staff reportedly penned the nickname "Duchess Difficult" due to her penchant for tantrums and early morning angry emails.
One source claimed: "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 latest report comes amid what could be seen as a thawing in Harry's icy relationship with his brother, Prince William, and father, King Charles.
After years of radio silence, William and Charles publicly wished Harry a happy birthday on Sunday, September 15.
The latest accusations are stark in contrast to the image Meghan has been painting of herself.
Since leaving the royal family, Meghan has become a fan of self-help author Brené Brown, who urges readers to cultivate gratitude and joy in their own lives.
During their recent tour of Columbia, Meghan claimed her new attitude had led her to a "chapter of joy".
She said: "If you're going to be grateful for your life, you have to be grateful for all aspects of it."
During a recent episode of her Archetypes podcast, Meghan expanded on her difficulties in asserting herself professionally.
"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 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.'"
Harry and Meghan’s current spokesperson declined to comment on HR's exposé.
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