When Prince Harry’s relationship with then-Meghan Markle was “outed” in the British media in late October 2016, tabloid reporters and paparazzi descended upon Toronto, where Meghan was filming Suits. The situation got so dangerous for Meghan, NBC (which produced Suits) hired private bodyguards for Meghan so that she could simply leave her house and go to work. Meghan went from mildly famous on a cable drama to internationally famous (for dating one of the most eligible bachelors in the world) in the space of a couple of days. She was also not getting any help from the palace, and I believe the palace had already begun throwing her to the wolves, even then, in those early days. Well, now one of her bodyguards during that time has given an interview. Steve Davies is actually pushing back on the revival of the “Meghan bullied palace staffers” storyline. Davies says, actually, Meghan’s great and she’s a really nice person who went through a really tough time.
In an exclusive interview with In Touch, Meghan’s former bodyguard Steve Davies is telling all about what it was like for him to work for the duchess. “She gets a bad rap for being a not very good person to work with, that she was this evil person in the royal family,” Steve, who had an intimate, firsthand perspective on Meghan as she transitioned from relative obscurity as a B-list actress to the unforgiving worldwide spotlight, exclusively tells In Touch. “I saw her, from working at the studio to working with charities to working with dog walkers and cleaners. There’s one huge lesson I learned from her: It’s give respect to get respect.”
When they first met in 2018, Meghan’s life had essentially changed overnight. “I felt sorry [for her] because she’d gone from being a celebrity to being a member of the biggest family in the world,” says the bodyguard, who was hired by NBC to watch over the Suits star, 43, in Toronto. “It was stressful for her — all the publicity.”
The constant surveillance [in 2016 & 2017] took a toll, Steve says. “She was paranoid. We had people following us around everywhere we went. We had problems with drones, vehicles chasing us. It was a nightmare.” Everything she’d taken for granted about her old life disappeared. “After a couple of weeks of working with her, I said, ‘What do you really want to do?’ She said, ‘I’d love to be able to go and shop in a grocery store.’ The previous security team wouldn’t let her do that. So I pushed the cart around the grocery store, and she was putting stuff in it. She really enjoyed that.”
From the moment she began dating Harry, 40, photographers have “followed [her] around, jumping traffic lights, trying to get alongside the vehicle,” says Steve, a former British special forces soldier who is now managing partner of Focus One Group in Toronto. These “dangerous” situations — similar to those that Harry and Meghan reported during a May 2023 trip to New York City — were common, he says. If Meghan had stayed in London, he feared that “what happened to Princess Diana in Paris might have happened to her.”
The situation deteriorated so much, Meghan has admitted she suffered from suicidal ideations. “She loves Harry, she loves the children, but it can cause a lot of depression [when] you’re scared to open a paper to see what people are saying about you,” notes Steve, adding that it didn’t help that “Buckingham Palace was controlling the PR and Meghan was always used to being able to control the PR herself with her team.”
It was around this time that employees started complaining. “The staff at Buckingham Palace [said they] couldn’t stand working for her,” Steve says. But back in Toronto, aides had seen a different side of Meghan. “Nobody had a bad word to say about her. Even with the pressure that she was under, she was warm and considerate all the time,” he insists, adding that what might surprise people most is “how friendly she is and what a big heart she has. She’s great to her fans, and she would go out of her way to help people. That’s what hurts me — that people believe [otherwise].”
And that’s why he’s speaking out now. Though he no longer works for her, Steve considers Meghan a friend. “My wife and I got invited to the wedding, that’s how close we became,” he says, adding that they exchange emails on birthdays and holidays. “I would work with her again, not a problem at all. She was a good person to work for, and she still is a good person.”
It’s sort of amazing how the Us Weekly cover story several weeks ago actually did the job. While there was tons of grumbling about it from the usual suspects, the fact is that it’s really tough to say that people should believe unnamed sources with unspecific grievances rather than Archewell staffers (current and former) going on the record about how Meghan and Harry are great bosses. This guy, Steve Davies, is literally just saying what everyone else has said about Meghan outside of the UK – that she was always lovely, even when her life changed so dramatically and she was under so much pressure. The longer this British character assassination campaign goes on, the more I want to know the specific examples people have cited for Meghan’s supposed bad behavior. I think that’s why we never get specifics too – because at some level, the media or the palace know that if those “bullied staffers” actually told their stories, people would laugh and say “are you kidding me, you had a nervous breakdown over an email from Meghan?”
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Pacific Coast News.