tribune
Jun 06, 2026

After the Queen’s Funeral, a Book Revives Meghan Bullying Claims — Including a 2018 Flight to Australia

After the Queen’s Funeral, a Book Revives Meghan Bullying Claims — Including a 2018 Flight to Australia

With Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral over and the official period of spectacle closed, royal insiders have returned to the record they know best: the Sussexes. A new book about the couple’s short career as working royals contains a fresh and pointed allegation of bullying against Meghan, Duchess of Sussex. A former private secretary claims she was “screamed at” before and during a flight to Australia in 2018.

The charge is not a legal finding. It is testimony published at the first moment the household was no longer occupied with burying a sovereign. That timing is part of the story. So is the fact that the 2018 tour — Harry and Meghan’s first major overseas visit as newlyweds, with Meghan newly pregnant — has been argued over ever since as either a triumph or the week the staff operation began to crack.

### What the Former Private Secretary Alleges

According to the book, the confrontation did not wait for Australian soil. It began before departure and continued in the air. The former private secretary describes being shouted at — “screamed at,” in the language now being circulated — in the pressurized, inescapable space of a long-haul flight and in the frantic hours that preceded it.

In royal-household terms that detail is meant to do specific work. A difficult conversation in an office can be explained as stress. Screaming at a senior aide on the way to a state-level tour is offered as evidence of a pattern: public charm, private fury, staff as the outlet.

The book does not, in the claims now being reported, produce an independent recording of the cabin. It produces a named role and a remembered scene. Meghan has previously rejected bullying allegations as false and smearing. There is no indication in the publicity around this account that she accepts this version of the Australia flight.

### Why 2018 Keeps Coming Back

Other posts