By Marisa Laudadio
10:47am PST, Feb 27, 2026
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What was once a close-knit Kensington Palace team began to unravel behind the scenes as tensions reached a breaking point. Claims of a toxic work environment have since emerged, with
Prince Harry and
Meghan Markle being blamed for the unhappiness, a new book told from the Prince and Princess of Wales' perspective reveals.
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Prince William and
Kate Middleton "had assembled a happy team and cultivated a good working environment [at Kensington Palace] that was being actively destroyed on a daily basis," a palace insider told author
Russell Myers in his new biography,
William and Catherine: The Monarchy's New Era: The Inside Story. Then things changed. "People were being ground down" by both Meghan Markle and
Prince Harry before and after their 2018 wedding, the insider claimed, leading several staffers to resign — and laying the groundwork for the Prince of Wales to separate his and the Duke of Sussex's royal households.
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Prince William and Kate Middleton "had fostered a very nice working environment for everyone in their office. They made sure people had a decent amount of time off, they remembered birthdays and celebrated anniversaries, that sort of thing," a source claimed, as reported by
RadarOnline.com. "They didn't need to work at this; it's just who they are."
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Prince William and Kate Middleton grew concerned, a source said, when they learned how newlyweds
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were allegedly behaving with the much-loved staffers who'd been reassigned to work for the new Duke and Duchess of Sussex. "When they discovered that people were being treated badly, it had a direct effect on [the Prince and Princess of Wales] because many of these people had previously worked for them," a source claimed, as reported by
RadarOnline.com, "so they wanted to do something about it immediately."
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In the new book
William and Catherine: The Monarchy's New Era: The Inside Story, author Russell Myers — who is also the royal editor for Britain's
Daily Mirror — writes that after
Prince Harry married Meghan Markle in 2018, "things were undeniably different."
Prince William and Kate Middleton "felt the Sussexes had 'an agenda.' They definitely thought the Sussexes' behavior stemmed from something more than being difficult." According to the book, "The whole atmosphere between them was pretty toxic."
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Prince Harry opened his bombshell-filled 2023 memoir,
Spare, with a detailed account of brother
Prince William physically assaulting him during a heated argument over Meghan Markle's allegedly poor treatment of palace staff — something the Duchess of Sussex has long denied. The Prince of Wales reportedly called his sister-in-law "difficult" and "rude." But an insider told author Russell Myers that Harry's version of events was "massively overblown," describing the Duke of Sussex's take as a "cheap shot." According to the insider, "Tensions were running very high, and yes, there certainly were cross words exchanged that on reflection were regrettable, but [William] is adamant there was no physical violence."
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According to author Russell Myers' new book, "the context of the fracas" between
Prince Harry and
Prince William inside Nottingham Cottage on the Kensington Palace grounds, "is, however, not debated." They were fighting about Meghan Markle and, Myers writes, "the stage had already been set for a parting of ways."
