TOM BOWER: The dam of silence on Meghan’s ‘bullying’ at the Palace has finally broken. This trickle will soon become a stream

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 continue to resonate today.

Ms Cohen, a loyal and former palace aide, has confirmed to an Australian newspaper that she was indeed among those interviewed by the palace following complaints about the duchess’s alleged aggressive behaviour.

A small step forward, you might think, but an important one when it comes to an episode that officials have so far swept under the rug.

After all, Samantha Cohen isn’t just any courtier.

An intelligent, charming Australian, she had been working with the late Queen for twenty years when she was asked to take on a challenging new assignment.

In 2017, Ms. Cohen agreed to help newly engaged Meghan acclimatize to the royal family and life at Kensington Palace.

Her job was to convince an ambitious, career-oriented and outspoken Californian actress to embrace the immutable hierarchy and rigid protocols of the royal family.

Maybe it was quite a task. Certainly, I believe that Mrs. Cohen quickly became irritated, within about six months, and that Meghan disagreed with or failed to understand the non-negotiable elements of the monarchy.

I also believe that members of Samantha Cohen’s team saw this as irresponsible self-indulgence.

Both sides would blame a clash of cultures.

Could a 36-year-old with a profile adopt the British penchant for understatement? Could she abandon the hyperbole of Hollywood in favor of the Palace’s subdued, repetitive ‘no comment’?

It seems not.

A 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 honors Samantha Cohen by appointing her Commander of the Royal Victorian Order at 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 had been “treated harshly” and compared the job to “working with teenagers.”

She doesn’t go that far in her conversation with the Herald Sun, but Ms Cohen does say she stayed in her role three times as long as she had planned – as officials struggled to find a replacement for her.

And, intriguingly, when a new private secretary was eventually found, that person quit during Harry and Meghan’s 2019 tour of Africa.

The Sun Herald quotes Mrs Cohen as saying: ‘I was only supposed to stay for six months, but I 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 also left while they were in Africa.’

Ms Cohen also appeared to confirm that she was one of a number of courtiers interviewed following a bullying complaint filed in 2018 by Harry and Meghan’s communications secretary Jason Knauf – and first revealed by The Times in 2020 .

Jason Knauf, right, filed a bullying complaint while 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 piled up, Mr. Knauf began to put together a file.

According to leaked email correspondence, Mr Knauff claimed to the palace’s human resources department that Meghan had bullied two PAs ‘out of the household’ within a year and targeted other female staff.

Mr Knauf noted that an outgoing staff member had said her meetings with Meghan made her “sick”.

“I can’t stop shaking” was another comment cited, and “I feel terrified.”

The correspondence showed that Mr. Knauf was concerned about Ms. Cohen herself, indicating that she was experiencing extreme “stress.”

The Sussexes have strongly denied the allegations.

When the bullying allegations first came to light, Meghan’s representatives said she dismissed the accusations as the “latest attack on her character.”

They said it was especially unfair when the Duchess was “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 denounced the claims, saying: ‘It was so outrageous that, although Meg and I demonstrated their lie with a 25-page human resources report packed with evidence, it will be very be hard to ignore.’

The Palace’s final report was kept private to protect participants, but there is no doubt that there was growing concern – or that the row became personal.

As I recorded in my book Revenge, William told Harry that Meghan’s behavior was unacceptable and that Mrs. Cohen and others had become suspicious because 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 complaints from staff about being bullied by Meghan.

Harry was outraged – but the accusations, whether justified or not, were fact.

So did a certain level of employee turnover.

Katrina McKeever, a member of Kate’s communications team, had recently resigned. Kate believed that her departure was provoked by Meghan’s criticism of her actions in the run-up to the wedding.

After Katrina McKeever, pictured, resigned from the then Duchess of Cambridge’s communications team, Kate believed Meghan’s criticism had provoked this

Melissa Toubati, a personal assistant in the photo left with Meghan, is said to be ‘traumatized’ by Meghan’s unreasonable behavior to meet her ‘unattainably precise demands’

Meghan denied that she had been critical and reportedly said: “It’s not my job to coddle people,” according to The Times.

Ms. McKeever’s grievances had been raised against Jason Knauf by others.

Melissa Toubati, another personal assistant, had also resigned. According to newspaper reports, Ms Toubati was ‘traumatised’ by Meghan’s unreasonable behavior to meet her ‘unattainably precise demands’.

Her departure was blamed on a tirade from Meghan, angry that embroidered blankets for guests during a shooting weekend were not the right shade of red.

The Sussexes are said not to be disappointed by Ms Toubati’s departure, but disagreed on the reasons.

In 2021, Meghan told a global audience on Oprah that palace officials had not only done little to protect her, but had gone so far as to conspire against her and Harry.

Such a claim would have been very disappointing to Mrs Cohen and other former staff, who believed they had worked tirelessly to help the couple.

It is a great shame that the complaints about bullying have not led to a solution.

To date, the palace attorney’s investigation remains under lock and key, a situation that is burdensome for prosecutors – and unfair for the accused.

Jason Knauf’s leaked email correspondence has given us a starting point, but until a few days ago, Ms. Cohen and fellow Palace staff had kept quiet.

Now that dam has finally been breached – and I have no doubt that more will now emerge.

The trickle of information will become a stream soon enough.

That is not to prejudge the matter or to say what the verdict will be.

But it is highly discreditable to the Palace that whatever truth we encounter should be exposed in this painful and unsatisfactory manner.

Tom Bower is the author of Revenge, Meghan, Harry and the War Between the Windsors