If I’m being completely honest, 2025 was the only year where I thought the Duke and Duchess of Sussex had a great communications team and their team executed wonderful, proactive strategies across the board. I credit Meredith Maines for the change, because I found the Sussexes’ pre-Maines comms to be amateurish, slow, and more often than not, self-defeating. Well, Maines left Team Sussex at the end of 2025. Y’all know I love the Sussexes, but they are big balls of chaos when it comes to communications staffing and strategy. The silver lining is that Harry and Meghan are enormously successful in spite of their chaotic comms. It’s also funny that the British media (and sometimes the American media) treats the Sussexes’ staffing issues like a crisis when it’s just… two very famous people trying to figure out an unprecedented situation of how to present themselves and communicate effectively while being simultaneously targeted in an international hate campaign. All of which to say, after Meredith Maines’ departure, Meghan has apparently rehired her old team at Sunshine Sachs Morgan & Lylis.
The Duchess of Sussex has returned to the celebrity public relations firm she used as an actress following the departure of her latest publicist, The Telegraph can reveal. Rather than take a punt on yet another advisor, Meghan has rehired Sunshine Sachs Morgan & Lylis (SSML) to help publicise her As Ever brand as well as other work.
The development follows the departure of Meredith Maines, the Sussexes’ chief communications officer, who quit towards the end of last year after less than a year in the role. Ms Maines was the couple’s 11th PR officer in just five years and rather than risk a 12th, the couple decided to revert to a known entity, and one that had served them well.
A well-placed source said: “SSML has been working on projects off and on with the Duke and Duchess since 2017. Sunshine is currently working alongside their internal team on As Ever and with the couple on efforts specifically in the US.” The New York-based firm, which specialises in “crisis communications” for celebrities, has long been closely associated with Meghan.
The agency represented her when she was an actress working on US cable drama Suits. She became good friends with her publicist Keleigh Thomas Morgan, who was a guest at her 2018 wedding, and is now a partner at the firm. Since meeting Prince Harry, the Duchess has maintained an on-off relationship with the agency. When the couple took a six-week sabbatical from royal duties in late 2019, the Duchess met with Ms Thomas Morgan as she planned the US launch of the Sussex Royal Foundation, which later became known as Archewell. Ms Thomas Morgan was said to have been a “huge help” in turning the Duchess’s vision into reality, using her networking skills to help build relationships and business connections.
I’m sure Sunshine Sachs does crisis-comms, but they’re only bringing that up because Prince William suddenly hired a crisis manager for HIS office. Meghan rehired Sunshine Sachs because they’re familiar, she’s been friends with many of those people for many years, and because there’s probably a great deal of trust across the board. I’m glad she’s gone back to them too. I have the feeling that there’s a lot of internal debate – across Harry and Meghan’s Archewell team, advisors and friends – about whether they’re better served by keeping everything in-house or whether they need to go outside of their team for the broader management of Brand Sussex. While Meredith Maines was “in-house,” I don’t hate that they’re going “outside” at this point.
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Photos and screencaps courtesy of Meghan’s IG and Bloomberg’s video.
