Anxious royal staff reported ‘feeling sick’ before working with the Sussexes, the author of a new royal book has claimed on Good Morning Britain today.
Staff were said to be wracked by nerves and some even left ‘shaking’ ahead of meetings with Meghan Markle, according to Valentine Low.
The Times royal correspondent and author of new bombshell royal book Courtiers: The Hidden Power Behind the Crown, made the claims as he spoke with Good Morning Britain host Susanna Reid.
He was speaking about his new book, in which it is claimed that a ‘paranoid’ Prince Harry would carry out ‘loyalty tests’ on Palace staff to check if they were still ‘fighting for him’.
The journalist today told the ITV morning show how palace staff who worked with the Sussexes during their times as frontline royals formed a group called the ‘Sussex Survivors Club’.
Asked by Good Morning Britain host Susanna whether staff had created the ‘group’, he replied: “Absolutely, yes.”
Susanna replied: “What did they survive?” to which he said: “I think it was a very difficult experience for some of them.
“As I revealed last year, there were allegations that Meghan bullied staff. People talked to me of people being completely destroyed.
“I've heard people at the time, faced with a possible encounter with Meghan, were saying things like 'I feel sick' or 'I'm shaking' – extraordinary things for an employee to say about the prospect of seeing their employer in half-an-hour.”
Low went on to say there was a way that the courtiers were in some way responsible for the couple's acrimonious ‘Megxit’ split from frontline royal duties in January 2020.
He said: “There is a way in which the courtiers are to blame. So the people around them were doing their best, these were people who believed in Harry and Meghan and they wanted to help.
“But there were signs early on, in the first year or so of their marriage, there were signs of how unhappy Harry and Meghan were.
“And no one really did anything about that. No one picked it up, no one flagged it up and there were no big discussions with the most senior courtiers in the institution.”
However, he concluded that he did not think it ‘would have made any difference’.
He added: “What Harry and Meghan wanted and what the Royal family, what the Queen felt able to give, I don't think there was ever a meeting point.”
The journalist also spoke to Good Morning Britain about claims that Prince Harry had conducted ‘loyalty tests’ on staff.
Low said: “This was brewing for a long time - before Meghan. Harry had this obsession with the media. He was so very unhappy.”
