More of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s staff members quit after ‘erratic’ work experience
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are losing staff once again. Four staff members have left in recent weeks, according to People magazine. And they’re, of course, not the first staff members to quit. Around twenty staff members have quit working for Harry and Meghan since they first moved to California five years ago. What’s happening here? Look, this is interesting because they just, uh, I mean, hired new staff members who are going to be across the team—really good people who had been working for major groups like Google, Apple, and Netflix. So, very, very experienced people. I think the issue continues to be why they leave staff: because there is no strategic purpose at the heart of what they do. Everything they do is very erratic. Now, you imagine working in a team like that, where one minute we’re doing this thing, but then we’re doing this thing, or there’s a very reactive approach to things.
So, for instance, when Harry lost his court case in the UK over security, he was bang in front of the BBC within 24 hours. There’s not the thought, process, and strategy that makes working for somebody a pleasurable and culturally, kind of, uplifting experience. This would be very challenging. Now, whether or not they can change this—or not—because the problem with this is that this is not how the monarchy works. The monarchy keeps people for a long time. They have an idea of what they’re going to do. If they shift direction, it’s like a ship moving very, very slowly, and they’ll try a new approach—as we’ve seen with their use of social media. It just didn’t happen overnight.
Whereas everything that Meghan and Harry do is knee-jerk. And so, leaving Meghan, you know, Meghan’s business, so many things that Harry does: “I’m going to do this,” and then, suddenly, he’s falling over, and you know he’s saying he’s going to write—when he was going to write Spare, and then there was some idea that, oh, maybe there were problems with Spare—he told too much. There’s not the thought that’s, yeah, there’s not the thought that’s going into it. There’s no strategy, and for people to work in that environment must be very, very hard. They all sign NDAs, though. If one of them could actually speak out at length, we’d get a much better idea of what it’s like in the… Well, we do have an update on Meghan Markle’s new lifestyle brand, as ever. Apparently, she’ll be releasing new products in an episode with Arise with Emma Greed.
And Meghan explained that she’d been planning to offer plenty more products. Let’s take a listen to this.
“Okay, let’s take this opportunity to grow—to have exponentially more SKUs, as well as more inventory. And, um, and that’s what we’ve been doing. We went right back to making sure we could scale up to that level. Yes, and have the quality meet the quantity, which was very key. And then, if we have that opportunity of more time, the luxury of that is—well, the products that have been in development that were going to be punted to this quarter—should we pull this into this next launch? H, what do you make of listening to her on that podcast?”
First of all, I find it so frustrating because we all know a successful business is one that launches and has their products available. These sell within forty-five minutes, but she can spin anything in her favor. There she’s saying, “Oh, you know, we were able to pull these products forward.” Well, why were those products not ready to go the second week? Why was there not more stock? You know, if she believes in her product, then she needs to have more of it. You don’t want people thinking they’d like some jam and then can’t get some jam, or some flower sprinkles. Although, goodness knows how she manages to sell those sprinkles. Go out to your garden, honestly.
You know, she just, she is the master of spin. The problem is that if you’re going to spin well, you want people to believe it. None of us are believing, and we’re just thinking, “This is so lightweight. This is not a businesswoman.” She’s talking all the time about being a businesswoman, but she’s not showing that she’s a businesswoman. Absolutely. No, no. Well said.
Now, the Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson, has opened up on social media, highlighting the importance of mental health awareness. She revealed that she recently visited a clinic in Zurich, which specializes in care for people struggling with complex mental health issues, also around addiction. What more can you tell us about this?
This actually came from a piece she’s written for the UK Telegraph, which I love—when people of stature like this actually sit down and write a piece, being a journalist, to get it straight from their own mouth. And what she talks about is the huge number of personal scars that she is carrying and the trauma that she went through. Not a lot of people know that her mother left her when she was twelve years old. Susan Barantes went off to South America; she had fallen in love with a polo player. And for Sarah and her older sister Jane, who, of course, lives in Australia, this was very, very confronting. This is abandonment.
And I think this goes to the heart. She speaks about why she falls for quick things, ideas, and people loving her because there’s a loss of love in her life. Her mother then went on to—actually, she was killed in a car accident the year after Princess Diana died. So, for Fergie to talk about this loss, she also, in the piece she’s written, and as you say on her social media, has talked about potentially having ADHD.
So, I can see all this, but what’s really lovely is that the more honest she is—and she has been through her cancer battles with both skin and breast cancer—the more we’re getting an insight into this woman, who, for many years, particularly when I lived in Britain, was called things like the Duchess of Pork or, you know, Fat Fergie, which is not how we talk about people now and shouldn’t talk about people. I think there’s a lot of goodwill towards Fergie. She’s an incredible mother, very loyal to Prince Andrew.
And the more she talks about her experiences—not in a Meghan-style way of telling her truth, but in a way that connects with other people—I think the love and feeling for her will continue. Yeah, absolutely. Very powerful, and to open up and be so vulnerable about her experiences, I think, allows people to connect in an authentic way.
Now, Prince Harry’s Invictus Games Foundation has announced that six nations have come forward with ambitions to host the 2029 Games. Among those submitting a bid was Ukraine, despite the ongoing conflict. It’s hard to believe that you could hold an event like that with the ongoing geopolitical issues there. But, interestingly, of course, Harry went to Ukraine just a couple of months ago and met with veterans—people who had worked within the military, but also those in rehabilitation centers as a result of the injuries they’ve sustained during the war.
So, we understand, according to the outgoing head of Invictus, that there are 100,000 people in Ukraine now who are amputees or otherwise affected, and who could potentially take part in the Invictus Games. Just the notion that Ukraine may be in a space to do that in four years’ time is heartwarming. Whether or not it happens, it shows why Harry’s central philosophy around Invictus will have resonance for years to come, because it’s not just about war as it continues. We’ll have the Iranians, the Israelis, and many other countries affected, who could potentially participate in these sorts of games in the future.
But what a lovely idea to think that Zelensky might win that war, and that the Games could take place there. I mean, who knows? But, hopefully.
Angela Mher, thank you so much for joining us on Power Hour.
