How Jason Knauf deepened divide between Prince William and Prince Harry

Jason Knauf, the former press secretary to Prince William and Kate Middleton, said the Prince of Wales will do things his own way when he becomes king.

During an interview with 60 Minutes,  he said, "Every generation of the royal family has to reinvent the role for the generation that they serve.

Jason Knauf played a significant role in the tensions between Meghan Markle, Prince Harry, and Prince William.

Knauf served as the communications secretary for Prince William, Kate Middleton, and Prince Harry at Kensington Palace. 

When Meghan joined the royal family after her engagement to Harry in 2017, Knauf’s responsibilities expanded to include managing her communications as well.

He sent an email to Simon Case, then Prince William’s private secretary, raising concerns about Meghan’s behavior toward staff. 

In this email, Knauf alleged that Meghan had bullied two personal assistants, driving them out of the household, and was undermining the confidence of a third staff member. 

This email became a flashpoint in the escalating rift between the brothers. 

Meghan’s team strongly denied these allegations, framing them as part of a calculated smear campaign by the palace, while Harry described the leak’s impact as leaving Meghan in tears, accusing the institution of "gaslighting" them.

Knauf’s role deepened the divide further during Meghan’s 2021 privacy lawsuit against Associated Newspapers, the publishers of the Mail on Sunday, over the publication of a private letter she wrote to her father, Thomas Markle.

As the case moved to the Court of Appeal, Knauf provided a witness statement that contradicted Meghan’s earlier claims. 

He revealed that Meghan had consulted him on the letter’s draft, suggesting she wrote it with an awareness it might leak, a detail used by the newspaper to argue it wasn’t truly private. 

In their Netflix documentary, Harry and Meghan, expressed shock and betrayal over this, with their lawyer Jenny Afia asserting that Knauf’s statement could only have been authorized by his boss. 

Harry called it a sign of the "symbiotic relationship" between the royal institution and the press, driving him to leave the UK. Knauf’s representatives countered that he was asked to provide evidence by both sides and remained neutral, acting on legal advice.

When William and Harry’s households split in 2019, Knauf chose to stay with William and Kate, becoming their senior adviser and later CEO of their Royal Foundation until 2021.

 William personally awarded him the Lieutenant of the Royal Victorian Order in May 2023,