The Real Reason Prince Harry & Meghan’s Staff Keeps on Leaving After Their 10th Publicist Quit—It ‘Must Be Horrible’
The fact that there has been a high level of turnover on Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s staff in the past few years has garnered a lot of interest, particularly after rumors that Markle was difficult to work with when she was part of the British royal family. Those rumors always seemed to be a matter of different styles and the institution’s dislike for change, but people have latched onto staff changes now to wonder if, perhaps, there was any truth to the original stories in the first place.
According to royal biographer Ingrid Seward, working for the couple is probably “chaotic.” The Editor-in-Chief of Majesty Magazine told The Sun: “It must be quite chaotic working for the Sussexes. They’ve lost so many staff,” adding, “It’s not that the staff stay for any length of time, they seem to make very brief appearances and then leave. It’s obvious the job they’re expected to do is not the job they imagined they would have.”
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This comes after the Daily Mail reported thatEmily Robinson, the couple’s director of communications, was departing after only four months in the role. She’d been the couple’s tenth publicist in 5 years, according to the outlet. Robison previously worked at Netflix as a Senior Director of Publicity. Sources close to Robinson told the outlet, “It was her decision. She left a few weeks ago. She’s not a quitter, so things must have been pretty horrible for her to go.”
According to Seward, “I think it has to stem from Meghan’s personality, because she’s the big boss.” She added, “I’m trying to think of a reason that she would be very hard to work with. She interferes; she gives out the wrong message. I think they’ve got to be more low-key. PR isn’t always about getting people out there. Some of the best PR keep people out of the news.”
The royal expert even had advice for Harry and Meghan. “I think they should be keeping out of the news, stop accepting humanitarian awards that nobody really understands what they’re for. They should just try and lead the life they said they wanted to, which was more of a private life.”
All of this is, of course, speculation. No one knows the reason for Emily Robinson’s departure, and it could have simply come down to the fact that, with With Love, Meghan likely not continuing, the type of PR she was asked to do in the future was not in her wheelhouse. A statement to People about her departure read, “Ms. Robinson oversaw project-based work for a very successful season of With Love, Meghan and additional support for the production company,” adding, “She did an excellent job and completed these projects with great success.”
Some of the departures from Harry and Meghan’s teams have likely been about people using the job with them as a springboard for bigger things. Last year, for example, their global press secretary and head of communications, Ashley Hansen, left to launch her own communications firm. Two of the biggest names, Liam Maguire, the director of communications in Europe, and Meredith Maines, the couple’s chief communications officer, remain in their positions.
Not everyone is leaving, and not everyone is doing it for the same reasons. And that means there will always be speculation, and discussions about why it happened. If the couple is good at PR, though, we will likely never truly know the answer.
