Why Hollywood keeps giving up on Harry and Meghan
It appears Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have made things complicated again – they’ve fooled their American advisers once again.
Josh Kettler, a Santa Barbara-based consultant who served as chief of staff to Harry and Meghan Markle, reportedly resigned in August after just three months in the position, becoming the latest member of the ever-growing “Sussex survivors club,” as some former employees have taken to calling themselves. Prior to Kettler, there was Toya Holness, who served as the company’s global press secretary until 2022, and Christine Weil Schirmer, a former Pinterest communications director who stepped down as Harry and Meghan’s communications director in 2021. Samantha Cohen, Markle’s top adviser and personal assistant, also left the same year.
Previously, there was Sunshine Sachs partner Kelly Thomas Morgan, who represented Meghan when she was still a commoner (a Suits star, to be exact), added Harry to her client list when they got engaged, and later helped the couple set up their own in-house PR department when they moved to California.
(Sources tell Rambling Reporter that Morgan stopped representing them around 2020 after the Duke and Duchess of Sussex stopped paying Sunshine Sachs for their services, but the PR firm denies this is the case.) Other members of the Survivors’ Club include Catherine St. Laurent, who was head of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s charity Archewell for a year, Archewell’s chief operating officer Mandana Dayani, head of content Ben Browning (who produced a Prince Harry and Meghan documentary for Netflix before moving to FilmNation), and head of marketing Farrah Taylor.
Why did everyone leave? What’s the cause of all this chaos? “Everyone’s afraid of Meghan,” claims a source close to the couple. “She’s condescending and doesn’t take advice. They both make poor decisions and change their minds a lot. Harry is a very, very charming guy, completely unassuming but very encouraging of others. And she’s just awful.”
In 2018, Markle’s treatment of two royal aides led Buckingham Palace to investigate the then-princess for “bullying behaviour”. The findings of the investigation were never made public, but Markle denounced the effort as a “calculated smear campaign”. But some of the couple’s US staff harbour a particular hatred for Markle. Markle’s reported tendency to throw loud tantrums and send angry emails at 5am has earned her the nickname “the difficult duchess” within the palace. “She is utterly relentless,” one source says. “She walks around like a dictator in high heels, yelling orders in a rage. I’ve seen her make grown men cry.”
The unforgiving portrait they paint of her stands in stark contrast to the kinder, gentler image Markle has painted of herself. In recent years, the former princess has become an avid fan of best-selling Texas self-help author Brene Brown, who urges readers to cultivate gratitude and joy in life. While touring Colombia with her husband last month, Markle said her new attitude of gratitude has led her to her “chapter of joy.” “If you want to be grateful for your life, you have to be grateful for every aspect of your life,” she said.
Also in a recent episode of her podcast, Archetypes, Meghan spoke about the challenges she’s faced in asserting herself in the professional world and overcoming her natural reserve: “I’d walk into a room cowering and tiptoeing, and the most embarrassing thing is when I’m speaking a sentence, my intonation goes up, it’s like a question, and I’m like, ‘Oh, stop, stop whispering or tiptoeing. Just say what you need to say. You’re free to set boundaries. You’re free to be explicit, but not demanding. Not harder, but clearer.'”
A current spokesperson for Prince Harry and Meghan declined to comment.
Has the Echo glitch turned Alexa into a “Communist agent”?
Obviously there are smarter ways to choose a presidential candidate than asking an AI assistant who to vote for, but it seems some undecideds are doing just that. And what Alexa is telling them is upsetting MAGA circles more than usual. Until a week ago, if you asked Alexa why you should vote for Donald Trump, the bot would reply, “We can’t serve you content that promotes a particular political party or a particular candidate.” But when you asked why you should vote for Kamala Harris, Alexa listed off a string of reasons to choose the Democrat, including “She’s a woman of color and she has a comprehensive plan to address racial inequality and inequity across the country.” Naturally, Trump supporters are infuriated by this discrepancy, with country star-turned-MAGA superfan John Rich accusing Alexa on X of being a “Communist agent” and Trump spokesman Steven Chang accusing Amazon of “Big Tech election interference.” But Amazon says Alexa doesn’t hold political views, and the glitch, likely caused by a recent upgrade, was “quickly fixed.” Now, when asked who she’ll vote for, Alexa keeps her thoughts quiet: “Frankly, I don’t think bots should be able to influence elections,” she says.
Maître d’Dimitri sails into the sunset (Tower)
At Tower Bar, what’s old is new again. After six years at Jeff Klein’s luxury hotel, San Vicente Bungalows, Dimitri Dimitrov is returning as butler at Tower Bar, the VIP-packed restaurant at Klein’s Sunset Tower Hotel where the 75-year-old Macedonian-born maître d’ began his Hollywood career two decades ago. “Dimitri played a key role in making Tower Bar what it is today, and our guests have missed him terribly,” Klein says. “Our regulars will be thrilled to have him back.” Those regulars include everyone from Jennifer Aniston to Tom Ford to Elon Musk (who persuaded Dimitri to buy a ton of Tesla stock in 2010, now reportedly worth millions). Dimitri says, “I’m so glad he’s here.” “It’s historic to return to this landmark hotel. It’s incredible to be asked at my age.” Incidentally, Dimitri is also the subject of a documentary about his iconic role as Hollywood’s most famous host, to be shot by Grant Singer, director of last year’s Netflix crime thriller Reptile and son of Hollywood’s most famous defamation lawyer, Marty Singer. Meanwhile, Klein is busy overseeing the debut of two SVB offshoots: one in Santa Monica (due to open in November) and one in New York’s West Village (SVB’s wandering membership expert Gabe Doppelt is moving to New York this fall to oversee completion). “It’s been hectic, but we’ve got it under control,” Klein says.
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This article appeared in the Sept. 11 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
