Meghan Markle and Prince Harry have rejected claims in a new report that they are disliked, losing industry clout and on the receiving end of “venom” in Hollywood.
The report in the Daily Mail says that they were not present at a big Emmys party hosted by Meghan’s super-powerful Hollywood agent Ari Emmanuel this week, and notes that his agency, WME, failed to stop a highly critical story about the couple, which accused Meghan of being a “dictator in high heels,” from appearing in The Hollywood Reporter last week.
In that story, a source told The Hollywood Reporter: “Everyone’s terrified of Meghan. She belittles people, she doesn’t take advice. They’re both poor decision-makers, they change their minds frequently. Harry is a very, very charming person—no airs at all—but he’s very much an enabler. And she’s just terrible.”
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Harry and Meghan’s team have described that report as false, with one source saying: “These quotes were fabricated by someone lacking knowledge of our company. The Duke and Duchess work from Montecito, and we’re based in Hollywood. They likely think we’re all in the same office and that this quote would fly, but the circumstances don’t even allow for it. If she’s ‘marching around’ and ‘barking orders’ no Archewell employee could factually claim that. It’s total nonsense.”
However the Mail’s source, described as a “senior Hollywood publicist,” is quoted in the new piece as saying: “Everyone, industry-wide, reads The Hollywood Reporter. It’s really striking that WME did not stop this running. WME normally—you would think—would have been threatening and denying access to other stars. Was this done here?”
Mail showbiz writer Alison Boshoff also noted a stinging takedown of the couple on Hollywood industry site Puck, which declared Harry and Meghan’s reported $100 million Netflix deal one of the “worst” of the “peak TV period,” and added that it was not expected to be renewed when it expires next year.
A source described as a “senior producer” is quoted as saying big Hollywood players never took the couple seriously, adding that the agreement with the couple was widely seen as a “vanity deal” that would lead nowhere. However with the entertainment industry now facing a “more austere climate” with thousands of job losses, “There’s now a genuine dislike and distrust toward them by some.”
Harry and Meghan’s allies dismissed such commentary as inaccurate and exaggerated to the Daily Beast.
The couple have struggled to hold on to staff in recent years, with Harry’s chief of staff, Josh Kettler, quitting after three months. Kettler’s departure reinforced a damaging narrative that Harry and Meghan are bad bosses. Previously, employees of the couple in the U.K. were said to have called themselves the “Sussex Survivors Club.”
Meghan dismissed bullying allegations as a smear after her former aide, Jason Knauf, complained that she “always” had someone “in her sights.”
