6 months after royal wedding: Duchess Meghan’s personal assistant quits

November 11, 2018
| Report Focus News

Working for the  Duchess of Sussex must be one of the most glamorous jobs, so how surprising to discover that she’s apparently struggling to hold on to key staff members.

I can disclose that Meghan’s personal assistant has quit suddenly, just six months after the American actress married into the Royal Family.

‘It’s a real shock,’ a source tells me.

‘Why would she want to leave such a prestigious job so soon?’

A Kensington Palace spokesman declines to comment on the departure of the PA, whose name is given only as Melissa. However, in a highly unusual move, a  Palace source has been authorised to pay tribute to her.

‘Melissa is a hugely talented person,’ the source says. ‘She played a pivotal role in the success of the Royal Wedding and will be missed by everyone in the Royal Household.’

Melissa had to deal with the traumatic build-up to Meghan and Prince Harry’s wedding in May, in which the Duchess’s father, Thomas Markle, gave a running commentary to journalists on the likelihood of his attending the ceremony. He decided not to come just five days before the wedding, leaving Harry to ask Prince Charles to step in to the breach and walk Meghan up the aisle.

Other members of Meghan’s family complained publicly that they had not been invited.

Royal biographer Robert Jobson claims in his new book, Charles At Seventy, which was serialised in this newspaper, that Meghan’s wedding preparations were so stressful that Harry became ‘petulant and short-tempered’ with members of staff.

He writes: ‘Raising his voice on occasion, Harry would insist: “What Meghan wants, she gets.” ’

Meghan’s former agent, Gina Nelthorpe-Cowne, described her before the wedding as unique in her determination to succeed. She said Meghan was ruthless with her time, her attention and her priorities. She was ‘picky’, not only when it came to her clothes but also her colleagues, instantly dismissing those who didn’t share her ‘vision’.