Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's PR Rep Starts Her Own Firm Following Mass Exodus of Staffers

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's global press secretary, Ashley Hansen, announced she will be stepping down from her full-time role at Archewell, but she hasn't ended her working relationship with the couple.

Hansen left her role to create her PR firm, Three Gate Strategies, and the Sussexes will be her company's part-time client.

“We are so proud of Ashley, especially as a female entrepreneur,” Meghan said in a celebratory statement.

“We look forward to having her focused expertise on our business and creative projects and her continued oversight of our communications team," the Duchess of Sussex continued. "My husband and I are excited to be alongside Ashley as she builds something extraordinarily special with her firm.”

Hansen is reportedly the 19th person to quit working with the partners in a full-time capacity, but Hansen continued to speak highly of her former employers.

“I am incredibly grateful to The Duke and Duchess for their continued trust," Hansen said in a statement.

“Their unwavering support and belief in my new firm has been meaningful and is a testament to their leadership," she noted. "I knew when they first hired me that they were giving me the opportunity of a lifetime and I couldn’t be happier to continue working together.”

Due to the mass exodus of staffers, the bullying allegations against the Duchess of Sussex began to resurface. OK! previously reported a royal insider stressed that other members of the royal family had reputations for being demanding.

“There have been plenty of difficult royals over the years, and I do think that after the ill-feeling of Megxit (when Harry and Meghan left the royal family), Meghan’s bad moments were amplified and distorted and blown out of proportion," a courtier told an outlet.

"Princess Margaret regularly got people to hold out their hands to use as ashtrays, for example, and that’s just laughed off as hilarious eccentricity. Look at Prince Andrew, he was unbelievable to the staff," they continued.

During Meghan's time in the U.K., the former actress struggled with her mental health, and the courtier wondered if her private struggles influenced her approach to being a boss.

“That said, there definitely were bad, very bad, even psycho moments," they claimed. "I witnessed people being chewed up in person and over the phone and made to feel like s---."

“But it was an incredibly fraught time, and I’m inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt," the insider noted. "She has said herself she was suicidal at times.”

In 2021, it was revealed that private secretary Jason Knauf was distrusting of Meghan.

“I am very concerned that the duchess was able to bully two PAs out of the household in the past year. The treatment of X was totally unacceptable," Knauf told Prince William's secretary Simon Case in an email.

“The duchess seems intent on having someone in her sights," he continued. "She is bullying Y and seeking to undermine her confidence. We have had report after report from people who have witnessed unacceptable behavior toward Y.”

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When the allegations were first made public, the Sussexes adamantly denied the claims.

“Let’s just call this what it is — a calculated smear campaign based on misleading and harmful misinformation,” a spokesperson for the duke and duchess said in a statement.

Hansen and Meghan were quoted by Page Six.