The Duchess of Sussex’s senior royal official, Samantha Cohen, has finally broken cover on the explosive bullying claims that first rocked Kensington Palace in 2021 and still reverberate today.
Ms Cohen, a loyal and longstanding former palace aide, has confirmed to an n newspaper that she was, indeed, among those interviewed by the Palace in the wake of complaints about the duchess’s alleged aggressive behaviour.
A small step forward, you might think, but a significant one when it comes to an episode which officials have so far swept under the carpet.
Samantha Cohen is not just any courtier, after all.
An intelligent, charming n, she had been working with the late Queen for 20 years when she was asked to undertake a challenging new assignment.
In 2017, Ms Cohen agreed to help the newly engaged Meghan acclimatise to the Royal Family and life in Kensington Palace.
Samantha Cohen sits behind the late Queen and the Duchess of Sussex on a visit to Widnes, Cheshire, in June 2018
Her task was to persuade an ambitious, career-minded and outspoken Californian actress to embrace the Royal Family’s immutable hierarchy and rigid protocols.
Perhaps it was a tall order. Certainly, I believe that Ms Cohen was soon exasperated, within six months or so, and that Meghan either disagreed with, or failed to understand, the non-negotiable elements of royalty.
I also believe that members of Samantha Cohen’s team viewed this as an irresponsible self-indulgence.
Both sides would blame a clash of cultures.
Could a 36-year-old with a profile adopt the British propensity for understatement? Could she ditch Hollywood’s hyperbole in favour of the Palace’s low-key, repetitive ‘no comment’?
It seems not.
One year later, after Harry and Meghan’s glorious May wedding in Windsor, Ms Cohen was in a mood to resign.
Samantha Cohen attends Harry and Meghan’s wedding in Windsor on May 19, 2018
The Queen honours Samantha Cohen by making her a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order in a ceremony at Buckingham Palace in November 2016
According to Valentine Low’s book Courtiers: The Hidden Power Behind The Crown, Ms Cohen complained, behind the scenes, that she felt she’d been ‘treated harshly’ and likened the job to ‘working with teenagers’.
She doesn’t go quite so far in her conversation with the Herald Sun, but Ms Cohen does say that she stayed in her role three times as long as she had planned – because officials struggled to find a replacement for her.
And that, intriguingly, when a new private secretary was eventually found, that person quit during Harry and Meghan’s tour of Africa in 2019.
The Sun Herald quotes Ms Cohen as saying: ‘I was only supposed to stay for six months but stayed for 18 – we couldn’t find a replacement for me and when we did, we took them on tour to Africa with Harry and Meghan to show them the ropes but they left as well while in Africa.’
Ms Cohen also confirmed that she was one of a number of courtiers who had been interviewed following a bullying complaint raised by Harry and Meghan’s communications secretary, Jason Knauf, in 2018 – and first revealed by The Times in 2020.
Jason Knauf, right, raised a bullying complaint when he was Harry and Meghan’s communications secretary in 2018. Pictured with Harry, William and Kate
It became clear that three women had formally told Mr Knauf that Meghan was ‘allegedly’ bullying them.
And that, as the complaints accumulated, Mr Knauf started to put together a file.
According to leaked email correspondence, Mr Knauff alleged to the Palace’s human resources department that Meghan bullied two PAs ‘out of the household’ within the space of a year and was targeting other female staff.
Mr Knauf noted that one departing member of staff had said her encounters with Meghan made her ‘feel sick’.
‘I can’t stop shaking’ was another comment cited, and ‘I feel terrified’.
The correspondence suggested that Mr Knauf was concerned about Ms Cohen herself, indicating that she was experiencing extreme ‘stress’.
The Sussexes have vigorously denied the allegations.
When the bullying claims first emerged, representatives for Meghan said that she rejected the allegations as the ‘latest attack on her character’.
They said it was particularly unfair when the duchess had been the ‘target of bullying herself and is deeply committed to supporting those who have experienced pain and trauma’.
In his best-selling memoir Spare, published in January last year, Harry railed against claims, saying: ‘It was so outrageous that even though Meg and I demonstrated their lie with a 25-page report to human resources full of evidence, it was going to be very hard for me to ignore it.’
The awkward moment when Meghan told another woman not to pose next to Harry at a polo presentation in Florida on April 12 this year. Spectators described it as ‘cringeworthy’
The final report by the Palace was kept private to protect those taking part, but there is no doubt that there was a growing mood of concern – or that the row was becoming personal.
As I record in my book, Revenge, William told Harry that Meghan’s behaviour was unacceptable and that Ms Cohen and others had become suspicious that Meghan had never intended to give up her career and become a loyal member of the family.
Did Meghan want to return to America, William wondered?
As their conversation became heated, William mentioned staff complaints about being bullied by Meghan.
Harry was outraged – but the accusations, whether justified or not, were a matter of fact.
So was a certain level of staff turnover.
Katrina McKeever, a member of Kate’s communications team, had recently resigned. Kate believed that her departure had been provoked by Meghan’s criticism of her performance in the run-up to the wedding.
After Katrina McKeever, pictured, resigned from the then Duchess of Cambridge’s communications team, Kate believed criticism from Meghan had provoked it
Melissa Toubati, a personal assistant pictured left, was allegedly ‘traumatised’ by Meghan’s unreasonable behaviour to meet her ‘unattainably precise demands’
Meghan denied she had been critical, supposedly saying: ‘It’s not my job to coddle people,’ according to The Times.
Ms McKeever’s grievances had been echoed by others to Jason Knauf.
Melissa Toubati, another personal assistant, had also resigned. According to newspaper reports, Ms Toubati was allegedly ‘traumatised’ by Meghan’s unreasonable behaviour to meet her ‘unattainably precise demands’.
Her departure was blamed on a tirade from Meghan, angry that embroidered blankets for guests at a shooting weekend were not the right shade of red.
The Sussexes were said not to be disappointed by Ms Toubati’s departure but disagreed about the reasons.
In 2021, Meghan told a worldwide audience on Oprah that, not only had palace officials done little to protect her, they had gone so far as to conspire against her and Harry.
Such a claim will have been deeply disappointing to Ms Cohen and other former staff as they believed they had worked tirelessly to help the couple.
It is hugely unfortunate that the bullying complaints have resulted in no resolution either way.
To date, the palace lawyer’s investigation remains under lock and key, a situation which is hard on the accusers – and unfair to the accused.
Jason Knauf’s leaked email correspondence have given us a starting point, but until a few days ago, Ms Cohen and fellow palace staff had remained silent.
Now, finally, that dam has been breached – and I have no doubt that more will now emerge.
The trickle of information will, soon enough, become a stream.
That’s not to prejudge the matter or say what the verdict will be.
But it’s very much to the Palace’s discredit that, whatever truth we arrive at, it should have to emerge in this painful and unsatisfactory way.
Tom Bower is author of Revenge, Meghan, Harry and the war between the Windsors