For those who watched Harry and Meghan’s Netflix documentary, you might be wondering: where is Jason Knauf now?
In the last episode of Harry & Meghan, the Sussexes and their lawyers explaiedn the long legal process against Associated Newspapers after Mail on Sunday published a personal letter from Meghan to her estranged father, Thomas Markle. Jason Knauf, who still worked for Prince William and Kate Middleton at the time, gave a witness statement. “Associated Newspapers predictably appealed,” Meghan and Harry’s attorney Jenny Afia said in the doc. “When we were just about to go the court of appeal, a senior member of [William’s] team [Jason Knauf] came forward to give his witness statement, which wasn’t required, and sadly there’s just no way he could have done that without the authority of his bosses.”
So after his statement, where is he now?
Where Is Jason Knauf Now?
Image: Alberto Pezzali – WPA Pool/Getty Images
Where is Jason Knauf now? According to his LinkedIn via UsWeekly, Jason Knauf is still working for the Royals in some capacity. He left his position as Chief Executive Officer of The Royal Foundation of The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge earlier this year in January 2022, but is now working as a Board Member for The Earthshot, a foundation which William founded. It’s also listed that he is a founder of Mission Overstory and a Global Leadership Fellow of Conservation International. He previously worked as the Senior Adviser to The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge as well as Communications Secretary to The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and The Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
After news of the statement came out, Harry and Meghan were visibly upset at their former staffer’s decision“Let me deal with it,” Harry said. “It’s your brother,” Meghan responded. “I’m not gonna say anything about your brother, but it’s so obvious.
“It’s even more obvious that they’ll try and cover it up,” the Invictus Games founder said, in reference to the Firm calling Jason “a former aide of Meghan and Harry” instead of William’s employee. “That’s why I’m now living in a different country. Because all the comms teams basically, like, try to outdo each other, but this is the contract,” he added. “The symbiotic relationship between the two institutions working the best that they can.”
“The witness statement had no legal significance on the case whatsoever other than to vindicate a lot of what Meghan had been saying about how the letter was never intended to be published,” their lawyer stated. Jason revealed texts and email correspondence with Meghan before she sent the letter to her father. “But it was filed because the impact on Meghan’s reputation was potentially damaging. The reporting skewered things to make it look falsely as if Meghan had lied, which she absolutely hadn’t.”
Meghan eventually won the case. “As has been proven time and time again,” Harry said in regards to the media backlash towards the Sussexes and in particular, their racist attitudes towards his wife, “there’s an incentive for the British media to get you to trial. Because they can make so much money, and it creates a circus around it, which is exactly what they did here. And if we don’t have the resource or the capability or the capacity to able to stand up to those people then no one else does.”
At the end of the episode, a message in regard to Jason’s involvement popped up, denying the claims . “These claims are entirely false. Mr. Knauf was asked to provide evidence by both the Duchess of Sussex and Associate Newspapers,” the message in the docuseries read. “He was advised by counsel that evidence in his possession could be relevant and he then provided this directly to the court, staying neutral in the process.”
However, the Sussexes and their team disputed those claims. “Mr. Knauf was not asked to provide a witness statement by the duchess or her team,” another message read. Nor do her attorneys believe Mr. Knauf remained ‘neutral’ by submitting a witness statement relied on by Associated Newspapers whilst working for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.”
Courtesy of Netflix
Jason also was believed to submit bullying allegations against the former Suits star. The allegations surfaced in March 2021 when The Times of London published an article that cited an October 2018 email by the former royal communications secretary who claimed the Duchess “was able to bully two PAs out of the household in the past year.” When the investigation was launched, Meghan’s representatives told BBC, that the allegations were the “latest attack on her character” and said it was particularly unfair since the duchess had been the “target of bullying herself and is deeply committed to supporting those who have experienced pain and trauma.” Meghan was allegedly cleared of the allegations, according to a source to Us Weekly, though Buckingham Palace refused to release the findings.
The documentary comes after a year after Oprah’s bombshell interview with the Sussexes as they talked about why they left the British royal family in January 2020. At the time, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced on their Instagram at they decided to take a step back as “working” members of the royal family to move from London to North America.
“After many months of reflection and internal discussions, we have chosen to make a transition this year in starting to carve out a progressive new role within this institution,” the couple wrote in a statement at the time. “We intend to step back as ‘senior’ members of the Royal Family and work to become financially independent while continuing to fully support Her Majesty The Queen. It is with your encouragement, particularly over the last few years, that we feel prepared to make this adjustment.”
Courtesy of Netflix
In the documentary, Harry and Meghan extensively talk about how their life as royals was impacted by the media. “The direction of the palace was, ‘Don’t say anything,’” Harry said. “But what people need to understand is, as far as a lot of the family were concerned, everything that she was being put through, they’d been put through as well. So it was almost like a rite of passage. Some of the members of the family were like, ‘But my wife had to go through that, so why should your girlfriend be treated any differently? Why should you get special treatment? Why should she be protected?’ And I said that the difference here is the race element.”
Courtesy of: Random House
For more about Prince Harry, read his upcoming memoir, Spare. Told for the first time in his own words, the book takes readers through the Duke of Sussex’s life with the British royal family, from the death of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997 to how the moment led to his decision decades later to move to America with his wife, Meghan Markle, and leave Buckingham Palace for good in 2020. “With its raw, unflinching honesty, Spare is a landmark publication full of insight, revelation, self-examination, and hard-won wisdom about the eternal power of love over grief,” the publisher’s description reads.
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