Kate Middleton's 'Amazing Track Record' Compared To Meghan Markle's 'Bullying': 'Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire'
Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle's track records with employees are being compared by royal experts as the bullying allegations against the Duchess of Sussex resurfaced.
Claims that Markle allegedly bullied staff and was a "difficult" boss returned to the spotlight earlier this month after a key witness broke her silence and admitted she gave evidence to Buckingham Palace's investigation into the matter.
While it is not clear what the investigation found as the results were never released, one royal expert suggested that the many claims that have popped up against Markle and the lack of complaints toward Middleton are telling.
"Where there's smoke, there's fire," Hilary Fordwich told Fox News Digital. "There have been too many examples of the 'Sussex Survivors Club' for the allegations not to be true. ... In contrast, not even one such report has ever been raised regarding Kate Middleton."
The royal expert pointed out that Middleton maintained good relationships with the people in her hometown after becoming a member of the royal family, even inviting the local butcher to her and Prince William's wedding in 2011.
"Ask her family's butcher from when she was a little girl growing up," Fordwich said. "She was [described] as a polite little girl. He was [later] invited to her wedding to Prince William in Westminster Abbey. An amazing track record indeed."
In contrast, Markle and Prince Harry's former private secretary Samantha Cohen claimed that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex struggled to retain staff during their time as working royals.
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Cohen recently told the Australian outlet Herald Sun that her would-be replacement allegedly quit on the royal couple just days after they started working for the Sussexes in 2019.
Queen Elizabeth II's former press secretary also revealed during the interview that she was one of the staffers who were interviewed during the investigation into the bullying allegations against Markle. She did not share further details on the probe.
The Times U.K. first reported in 2021 that Markle allegedly made her assistants cry and bullied staffers at Kensington Palace into quitting while she was a working royal.
Valentine Low, the reporter who broke the story, further detailed the allegations in his book, "Courtiers: Intrigue, Ambition, and the Power Players Behind the House of Windsor," and in an interview with Fox News Digital.
Low claimed that some royal staffers allegedly found Markle and Prince Harry "difficult" to work with and compared them to teenagers.
"That's what they were like," the veteran royal correspondent told the outlet. "They were kind of stubborn. They were difficult. They were uncontrollable and incredibly willful."
Low cited an instance in the summer of 2019 when the Duke and Duchess of Sussex allegedly ignored staffers' advice to cut down on their private jet usage as they were outspoken environmental advocates.
"They wouldn't listen to reason. And, of course, when the media found out about it, Harry got severely criticized. But they were just difficult to deal with," the royal author claimed.
Markle's camp vehemently denied the bullying allegations -- which surfaced just days before the Sussexes' bombshell Oprah Winfrey interview aired -- calling it "a calculated smear campaign based on misleading and harmful misinformation."
In a statement to the Times, lawyers for Markle and Prince Harry claimed that the newspaper was "being used by Buckingham Palace to peddle a wholly false narrative" before the interview, in which the couple spoke for the first time about their decision to step back as working royals and leave the U.K.
"It's no coincidence that distorted several-year-old accusations aimed at undermining The Duchess are being briefed to the British media shortly before she and The Duke are due to speak openly and honestly about their experience of recent years," a spokesperson for Prince Harry and Markle told the outlet.
