Times reporter claims Prince William didn’t give ‘approval’ for Jason Knauf’s leaks
Just before the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s Oprah interview aired in March, Kensington Palace was in full meltdown mode. In truth, all of the salty, fussy, awful people in all of the royal households were scared sh-tless of what Meghan and Harry would say, but clearly the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and their aides were concerned that a lot of their behavior and would be called out, and they would have to answer for what they had said and done to the Sussexes. At that point, it was clear that KP had been briefing against Meghan in particular since the fall of 2018, but the story they put out in March of this year was so clearly part of an authorized and coordinated smear campaign ahead of the Oprah interview.
The story that came out? Meghan bullied staffers and made white women cry, and Jason Knauf was so “concerned” about Meghan’s bullying that he wrote an email about it to another palace aide. Magically, the Times of London got their hands on the email written by Jason Knauf. Just as the Mail got their hands on Knauf’s emails and texts in their appeal of Meghan’s lawsuit. Knauf is handing over selected communications to the media and very few people in the royal media establishment are actually asking the question: is Knauf being authorized to do so by William and Kate? The Times reporter Valentine Low was interviewed as part of The Princes and the Press and Low said no, Knauf’s email wasn’t leaked with William’s approval. Sure.
Allegations that the Duchess of Sussex had “bullied” two members of staff at Kensington Palace were “absolutely not” leaked with Prince William’s tacit approval, according to the journalist who reported them. The final part of a controversial BBC documentary on the relationship between Prince William, Prince Harry and the media examined allegations of a briefing war between the brothers.
The bullying claims, which the duchess has denied and which are the subject of an ongoing inquiry at Buckingham Palace, emerged just days before Harry and Meghan’s interview with talkshow host Oprah Winfrey.
The BBC presenter Amol Rajan asked the Times journalist Valentine Low if he believed the people who leaked the bullying allegations to him had been licensed to do so by the Duke of Cambridge. “Did you think that the people speaking to you had his tacit approval?” Rajan asked. “Absolutely not,” Low replied.
The Sussexes’ lawyer, Jenny Afia, told the documentary, The Princes and the Press, that the bullying story was untrue and had “massive, massive inaccuracies”. But, she said, it was difficult to refute. “‘It is really hard to prove a negative. If you haven’t bullied anyone, how do you show that you haven’t ?” she said.
She also defended the Sussexes against newspaper criticism that they demanded privacy, and fought for it through the courts, while at the same time speaking out to others. She said: “It’s not them who have said they want privacy. It’s something that the tabloids have said about them that’s latched on. They have taken steps when there have been blatant violations, unlawful violations of privacy, of course. Then they have challenged it. Because that’s in line with their values.”
But that did not mean they had to take a vow of silence, she said, adding that privacy was the right to choose what information they shared.
Where we are now: Jason Knauf leaked an email about “Meghan’s bullying” to the Times, and then months later, he gave a cache of selected communications between himself and Meghan to the Mail and the Mail’s lawyers, in the hopes of helping the Mail’s appeal of Meghan’s successful summary judgment. And we’re supposed to believe that Knauf, one of Prince William and Kate’s closest aides, their PR rainmaker, the man who put together Earthshot, did all of that without William and Kate’s authorization, complicity or approval? How stupid do they think we are? I get that William and Kate are incredibly stupid, but do they truly believe everyone else is too stupid to notice that their most trusted aide is doing all of these things? Of f–king course William and Kate authorized all of it.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Instar.
