Who Is Jason Knauf? What We Know About the Palace's Controversial Former Staffer

LEICESTER, UNITED KINGDOM - NOVEMBER 28: (EMBARGOED FOR PUBLICATION IN UK NEWSPAPERS UNTIL 24 HOURS AFTER CREATE DATE AND TIME) Jason Knauf, Communications Secretary to The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, accompanies Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge and Prince William, Duke of Cambridge on a visit to Leicester City Football Club's King Power Stadium to pay tribute to those people killed in the helicopter crash of October 27 on November 28, 2018 in Leicester, England. (Photo by Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images)

The first three episodes of Netflix’s “Harry & Meghan” docuseries, which premiered on Dec. 8, have make clear royal drama, unveiled the true cruelty of the media, and outlined key gamers behind palace doorways. Chief amongst them is Jason Knauf — a reputation which will sound acquainted, even when a title does not instantly come to thoughts. But whether or not you realize him or not, 38-year-old Knauf, who turned the communications secretary to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex again in 2015, has performed an enormous position within the younger royals’ lives. As James Holt, government director of the Archewell Foundation and former palace spokesman explains within the third episode of the docuseries, “For each duke and duchess, there’s additionally a communication crew. Comms for the royal household is similar to a press workplace, press spokesperson for politicians and companies, celebrities.”

Tim Burt, strategic adviser to Archewell, provides that, “These communications groups permit the household to be one step faraway from coping with the media,” with the general intention of sustaining management over the narrative. For Harry and Meghan, Knauf was the individual heading this effort, which even they admit was a large job. “Our comms crew at the moment was joined with my brother’s workplace. So in whole, there was just one individual actually devoted to us,” Harry says.

Meghan remembers the salacious media frenzy the couple have been already going through. “I do not suppose anybody understands what that very small comms crew was coping with,” Meghan says. “They simply could not wrap their head round [it], and I’ve compassion for it.” She goes on to elucidate how she was guided in all features of her relationships and even informed to not invite her personal niece, Ashleigh, to her wedding ceremony. The focus, it appeared, was on minimizing any unhealthy press and placing out the “proper” picture.

Knauf was additionally tasked with serving to the royals write private letters. However, after Meghan sued Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) for allegedly publishing a “private and personal” letter she had written to her father, the 2 appeared to have a tenuous relationship. The British newspaper The Times reported that Knauf was the nameless staffer who made a criticism towards Meghan to HR in 2018, saying she was bullying different employees members.

After all this drama, Knauf left Kensington Palace in 2019 to turn out to be chief government officer of the Royal Foundation of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. According to his LinkedIn page, Knauf left that put up earlier this yr and now holds a number of titles, together with as founding father of Mission Overstory and board member of The Earthshot Prize.

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