Catherine St-Laurent has not yet commented on her decision. James Holt, a longtime employee of the Sussexes, will replace her as executive director of Archewell, a move, which will leave the couple without any official representation in Britain.
The chief of staff of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s transition team has resigned after working for the couple for less than a year, Fox News reported without citing its sources. According to the Sun, Catherine St-Laurent also resigned from her post of executive director of Archewell, a nonprofit organisation the Sussexes created after stepping down from their royal duties.
The newspaper writes that the Canadian-born mother of two has taken an advisory role at the organisation but is not expected to stay there. Prior to her work with the Sussexes, St-Laurent held senior roles at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for seven years. She said she was “honoured” to work for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle when she joined their team last April. However, insiders told the Sun that she has since become frustrated. Catherine St-Laurent’s resignation makes her the 13th key aide to have left the Sussexes in the past years.
The news of a structural shakeup among the employees of the Sussexes comes two weeks after the couple gave a tell-all interview to Oprah Winfrey, which stirred strong emotion across the globe. During the two-hour conversation, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle spoke about their experience of being royals and the things which had led them to quit this life. Among other things, Meghan Markle accused one member of the family of being racist and claimed the Firm – aka senior members of the Royal Family and their staff- perpetuated falsehoods about the couple.
The development also comes on the heels of The Times’ report, which revealed that Meghan Markle faced a bullying complaint when she was a royal. Buckingham Palace said it would conduct an investigation into the claims adding that it was “very concerned” by the allegations. Meghan Markle released a statement via her spokesman, who called the claims the “latest attack on her character”.