Few royal observers, except for fervent members of the Sussex Squad, are buying the spin that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have amicably parted ways with Meredith Maines, their 11th publicist in five years, because the seasoned P.R. professional and Stanford graduate has successfully “concluded” her work for the “inspiring” couple after just 10 months.
One reason that this spin doesn’t work is that Harry and Meghan’s 2025 was pretty “terrible,” P.R.-wise, and their reputations have “sunk like a stone,” the Daily Beast’s European editor Tom Sykes has written, in the wake of Maines’ statement Friday that she was leaving her job as the couple’s chief communications offer to “pursue another opportunity.”
“(Maines’) tenure has been an absolute disaster,” a source also told the Daily Mail writer Alison Boshoff. But that same source, along with Sykes and and others, said it’s hard to blame Maines for Harry and Meghan’s disastrous 2025. “If she did in fact quit then she’s getting out to save face before it gets worse,” the Daily Mail source said.
According to the Daily Mail, the final straw for Maines had to do with the P.R. fiasco related to Harry and Meghan’s appearance in November at the 70th birthday party for Kris Jenner, the “momager” for the Kardashian clan. In what became known as “photogate,” Harry and Meghan happily turned up at the star-studded party, hosted at the Beverly Hills home of Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez.
But the Duke and Duchess of Sussex then reportedly insisted that the Kardashians remove all photos of themselves that the Kardashians posted to Instagram. Harry and Meghan’s team first told media outlets that they had signed “no photo” forms ahead of the party, then denied that they had even asked for the photos to be removed. Meanwhile, sources close to Jenner offered a different version of the photo feud, saying guests had not been asked to sign any forms and that they had in fact removed the photos after a “request.”
The Daily Mail reported that Maines actually resigned from her job after the Kardashian saga exploded, though Maines denied it at the time. Maines also reportedly said she was staying in the job through the holidays to help with the transition.
Whatever happened with Maines, Sykes said she is the latest in a long line of top professionals in public relations or media production who have gone to work for the Sussexes, only to leave after a year, or even after a few months. Maines came to the job with a “glossy resume” that included undergraduate and graduate degrees from Stanford and stints working for Google and Hulu, Sykes said.
When it comes to public relations, a skilled publicist can survive, and even thrive, in the midst of negative publicity — of which Harry and Meghan are all too familiar, Sykes said. But even the best publicist can’t survive clients “who won’t listen, or, worse, clients who lie to them and insist you push a false narrative that collapses under basic scrutiny.” Sykes said. “The nightmare for any publicist is the moment your client forces you to double down on something that is untrue. Then the damage doesn’t just stick to the celebrity; it sticks to the publicist.”
Ever since leaving royal life and relocating to California in 2020, Harry and Meghan have tried to fashion themselves as global thought-leaders, innovators, media moguls and philanthropists, initially buoyed by their multimillion-dollar deals with Netflix and Spotify. But those deals have since ended and their public image has been shaped by repeated attempts at self-reinvention and “self-inflicted fiasco, and frantic damage control,” Sykes said.
In 2025, Meghan was supposed to relaunch herself as a Gwyneth Paltrow or Martha Stewart-level lifestyle guru and social media influencer, with her long-awaited return to Instagram and the debut of her lifestyle brand and her Netflix show, “With Love, Meghan,” according to Page Six. Instead, 2025 began with fires raging through the Los Angeles area, and Meghan and Harry labeled “disaster tourists” for being photographed, getting a private tour of decimated neighborhoods in Altadena in the midst of the disaster response. Several days later, Vanity Fair published a lengthy investigative story that revived long-standing allegations that Meghan was a “bullying” boss and that the couple were both difficult to work for.
Once Maines was hired in March, the bad P.R. didn’t let up, as Meghan had to hastily rename her line of jams and other home products “As Ever,” due to trademark problems, while her Netflix show received withering reviews and became comic fodder for social media memes. Meanwhile, Harry continued to be embroiled in scandals involving his African-based charities, then gave an off-the-rails interview with the BBC, which Maines reportedly helped orchestrate. Perhaps Maines’ one P.R. success over the past year was in helping Harry arrange to meet with his estranged father, King Charles III, so that the father and son could begin steps towards reconciliation.
But the year ended with the Kardashian photo-gate imbroglio, then Meghan revealed “comic levels of self-importance” by insisting that she be introduced as “Meghan, Duchess of Sussex” to a Harper’s Bazaar writer, as the New York Post said. According to Sykes, she then undermined the message of compassion and family togetherness that she tried to deliver in her Netflix Christmas special by issuing a seemingly cold-hearted public response to news that her long-estranged father, Thomas Markle, had suffered a health crisis in the Philippines and needed his left leg amputated. Through her team, Meghan let media outlets know that she at first questioned whether her father was having a health emergency. Her team then offered conflicting reports about her outreach to her father and finally told the Times UK that she had let her father know she would not visit him and had given up all hopes of them ever reconciling.
Maines’ announced departure also comes after Harry and Meghan revealed that they had cut three staff positions at their Archewell Foundation and were restructuring their nonprofit, as People reported. Citing Archewell’s financial statements to the Internal Revenue Service, the Daily Mail found that the nonprofit’s revenue from contributions and grants had plummeted in 2024, down to $2.1 million from $5.3 million the previous year. Meanwhile, expenses soared to $5.1 million in 2024, with only some $1.2 million going to grants to help other nonprofit organizations. Over the years, Harry and Meghan’s charitable work with Archewell has faced scrutiny because of critics’ belief that the couple may be using it more for self-promotional purposes than to fulfill its motto: “show up, do good.”
When Maines announced her departure, it’s not surprising that she would try to put a positive spin on it, given that she’s a professional, as Sykes said. “She really enjoyed her time there but at a certain point it is time to go,” a source told the Daily Mail. “Meredith feels that she has done what she set out to do.”
But another source told the Daily Mail that it was “a miserable and impossible job,” given that Meghan and Harry are usually inclined to blame staff, rather than themselves, for any P.R. fails. “Meghan will get disappointed by one thing and then ice someone out,” the source said. “She will never let you live it down or forget how you let her down and neither will Harry.”
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