Allegations Meghan Markle bullied her staff have been attributed on X, formerly Twitter, to an email she sent expressing concern for her mother's safety, but the argument is undermined by the timeline of events.
Fans posted a screenshot of an email from Meghan that said her mother, Doria Ragland, "feels unsafe," which was sent a little after 6 a.m. on November 12, 2018, to Jason Knauf, who was at the time Kensington Palace communications secretary.
They suggested it was the specific email that "staff claimed was [evidence of] bullying."
Meghan's message, seen by Newsweek, read: "I hope all is well—I meant to reach out this weekend to set a time to speak this week, but woke up to some sobering texts from my mom saying she feels unsafe.
"With that said, I feel a greater sense of urgency to sit down with you."
The Meghan Bullying Allegations Fan Theory
A post on X that was viewed 588,000 times read: "THIS was the infamous '5am email' that labeled Meghan Markle a rude, nasty, 'pushy' Duchess? THIS?!
"She gave her availability, let the person know there was a family emergency and even left it up to the secretary to choose the time to meet up! Wtf is wrong with these people?!"
Another, viewed 314,000 times, read: "This is the '5 am' email Meghan Markle sent at 6:14 am that Jason Knauf, Prince William & Kate's friend & then staff claimed was bullying.
"Ask yourself why that British royal family never released the law firm report on the alleged bullying investigation. Bec they bullied Meghan!"
Another viewed more than 100,000 times read: "The email that Duchess Meghan sent to Kensington Palace staffer, Jason Knauff...at 5AM...the horror!"
Meghan did send the email referenced in the X posts in November 2018, it was included in a batch of private messages made public through a lawsuit at the Court of Appeal in November 2021.
However, there is nothing to suggest it is the origin of the bullying allegations which had already been put on record in an internal email sent a month earlier.
Background to the 5 a.m. Emails Claim
The furor has a long history dating back to 2018 and first came to the public's attention in after an article in The Sunday Times in December of that year nicknamed her "Duchess Difficult."
It is this article from which the reference to 5 a.m. emails was derived. A source told the newspaper that any replacement for her departing private secretary, Samantha Cohen, would need to get up early.
The article read: "At the very least, Cohen's replacement will need a reliable alarm clock. Meghan has spoken of rising at 4.30 a.m. to do yoga, which she says is 'so good for healing your mind.'
"She is reported to send ideas and requests to palace staff as early as 5 a.m. 'Meghan needs someone with reserves of energy and patience to help her define her future role,' the source added."
There is nothing in the article to suggest the 5 a.m. reference related to only one email, nor that it was in any way connected to the email about Meghan's mother.
And far more information has since emerged about the bullying allegations against Meghan, which shows they date back to substantially before November 2018, when the email about Ragland was sent.
The Origin of Bullying Allegations Against Meghan
Most significantly, by October 2018, the situation had already become serious to the point that Kensington Palace press secretary Knauf put his concerns on record in an email to Prince William's private secretary, Simon Case.
It read: "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 [name removed] was totally unacceptable."
Knauf added: "The Duchess seems intent on always having someone in her sights. She is bullying Y [name removed] and seeking to undermine her confidence. We have had report after report from people who have witnessed unacceptable behavior towards Y [name removed] despite the universal views from her colleagues that she is a leading talent within the household who is delivering first-rate work."
"I asked [Sam Carruthers, head of HR at the royal household] what would happen if the duchess turned on me next," Knauf continued, "as seems possible given her behavior in recent weeks.
"I asked what would be done to make sure [private secretary] Sam Cohen feels supported. I raised the very real possibility that she could be struggling with severe stress and could have to walk away from her position."
The email was obtained by royal correspondent Valentine Low and published in U.K. newspaper The Times in March 2021, shortly before the release of Prince Harry and Meghan's Oprah Winfrey interview.
Low's royal biography Courtiers makes reference to 5 a.m. emails, but also gives a detailed account of other concerns, including one staffer's description of repeated calls on a Friday night.
"Every 10 minutes, I had to go outside to be screamed at by her and Harry. It was, 'I can't believe you've done this. You've let me down. What were you thinking?' It went on for a couple of hours," the aide told Low.
"You could not escape them. There were no lines or boundaries—it was last thing at night, first thing in the morning,"
Prince Harry's Own Account
Harry's memoir, Spare, also makes clear that problems in the private office at Kensington Palace, where the relevant staff worked, dated back earlier than November 2018.
In a passage positioned chronologically in summer that year, he wrote: "Nerves were shattering, people were sniping.
"In such a climate there was no such thing as constructive criticism. All feedback was seen as an affront, an insult.
"More than once, a staff member slumped across their desk and wept. For all this, every bit of it, Willy blamed one person. Meg."
Harry defended Meghan, suggesting she did not mistreat staff, but did not say at any point that any allegation against Meghan related to the email about Ragland.
He wrote: "Meg managed to remain calm. Despite what certain people were saying about her, I never heard her speak a bad word about anybody, or to anybody. On the contrary, I watched her redouble her efforts to reach out, to spread kindness."
The book also addressed the claim about the emails, but again did not connect it to Ragland: "Then a work of fiction about Meg making her staff miserable, driving them too hard, committing the unpardonable sin of emailing people early in the morning.
"(She just happened to be up at that hour, trying to stay in touch with night-owl friends back in America—she didn't expect an instant reply.)"
Even if the 5 a.m. email claim did relate to Meghan's concerns about Ragland, the X posts would still have significantly distorted the importance of that accusation within the wider narrative.
However, there is also nothing to suggest the claim related to any one single email, nor that it was in any way connected to that specific one, which was also not sent at 5 a.m.
Knauf's decision to go on record with his concerns in October 2018 cannot have been triggered by an email sent a month later in November.
Newsweek has contacted the Sussex camp via email for comment.
Jack Royston is chief royal correspondent for Newsweek, based in London. You can find him on X, formerly Twitter, at @jack_royston and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.
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