Meghan’s lawyer says bullying claims against her are used ‘very casually’

Meghan Markle’s lawyer has complained that the bullying allegations against the royal are being used “very casually.”

Solicitor Jenny Afia, who had appeared in a BBC documentary hosted by Amol Rajan last year to defend the Duchess from the bullying claims against her, recently joined him again in a podcast to discuss the controversial programme. The attorney from libel law firm Schillings said that the word bullying was a “very, very damaging term…particularly for career women.”

Buckingham Palace had announced in March last year that they were launching an independent inquiry into Meghan’s workplace behaviour after a report in The Sunday Times claimed that she drove two personal assistants out of the royal household and “undermined the confidence” of a third. However, the Duchess’s team in the United States rebuffed the claims as a “calculated smear campaign.”

Speaking with the royal’s permission, Afia had told the documentary that the bullying claims against her are “false.” She reiterated the stand in her recent podcast appearance called “Harry, Meghan and the Media,” and said, “I think the first thing is to be really clear about what bullying is because the term gets used very, very casually. My daughter called me a bully last week when I asked her to brush her teeth – she’s seven years old. So the term is used very freely and it’s a very, very damaging term as we know, particularly I think for career women.”

The attorney added that according to her, bullying is “improperly using power repeatedly and deliberately to hurt someone, physically or emotionally,” and Meghan “absolutely denies ever doing that.” She noted that her experience of working under the Duchess has made her believe that she would never bully anyone.

“I wasn’t there at the time but it doesn’t match my experience of her at all and I’ve seen her at very, very stressful times. That story is absolutely untrue that she is a bully. That said, she wouldn’t want to negate anyone’s personal experiences,” Afia explained.