Duchess Meghan’s former bodyguard speaks out: ‘she was warm & considerate’

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.”

[From In Touch Weekly]

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.

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53 Responses to “Duchess Meghan’s former bodyguard speaks out: ‘she was warm & considerate’”

  1. ML says:

    I’m both glad SD is speaking up now, and I wish he had done so years ago.

    • Pinkosaurus says:

      I think we are seeing a complete change in PR tactics, and it seems to have solidified after The Hollywood Reporter article. I suspect Steve was always willing to speak out but was told not to, or not asked by the Sussex team before. Clearly they keep in touch and it sounds like he would not do anything on his own without specific approval from Meghan, which is also a necessary strategy when running a business protecting celebs and dignitaries and probably subject to an NDA.

      • sunnyside up says:

        We are not going to see this article in the Mail or Express.

      • Shanta says:

        I agree. I think that in the beginning it was “never explain, never complain”…. but clearly… That didn’t work. This works much better. Hit back…with receipts… Don’t back down

      • Christine says:

        I agree, this is backing off the “if you don’t hear it from us, it didn’t happen”, which should have been enough, but alas everything is wrong with the British media and royal family. The way they have descended on Meghan, like a blight, for nearing a decade is breathtaking, and not in a good way.

    • kirk says:

      Mr Davies did speak up several years ago. Recalled seeing him on a Canadian talk show. Ha, found a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDwm1y1Eblw

    • sevenblue says:

      Wasn’t one of her bodyguards from Canada in the Netflix documentary? Also, one of the royal reporters said before he couldn’t get anyone close to Meghan to talk to him for his book. I think, anyone who worked with H&M knows not to speak to the reporters, because there has been an active campaign in the press to write negatively about them. Their words can be manipulated very easily. We saw that before that the named sources had to come out and said they didn’t say that, their words were changed.

      • MsIam says:

        Also, anyone who speaks up for Meghan is subjected to abuse online from the derangers (palace and UK media), so she may have told him not to speak up, especially since they are still in touch. I know Patrick Adams talked about the abuse he received for defending Meghan. It must be hard to see your friends go through that on your behalf.

      • aftershocks says:

        Yes @SevenBlue. I believe it was Steve Davies who appeared in the Netflix documentary to discuss how he was hired to protect Meghan when she was still working on her final Suits season.

    • Jamjoy says:

      He did speak out on a Canadian tv show when all this was going down. He’s saying the same truth about Meghan again for the deranged people in the back

    • bisynaptic says:

      Yes, wondering why this hasn’t happened, sooner.

  2. Brassy Rebel says:

    I think smart people who pay any attention at all are starting to understand what the royals and their sycophants do to women who marry in who they can’t control. It ain’t pretty.

  3. Becks1 says:

    I think this is worth a lot because it was one of the more stressful times in her life and a time when the palace wasn’t helping her (that was some foreshadowing, huh?) and she was still warm and considerate and this person would work for her again.

    One of the things that I think is actually effective this time against the bullying spears is that, yes, as Kaiser said, we have names. We have some of those staffers who the press uses as examples of how H&M aren’t good bosses so they left – those people are coming forward and saying, no, that’s not why I left. The press release last week from the head of their PR team or whoever specifically laying out why she was leaving got ahead of any negative stories in the british press.

    I also think it helps that these stories are becoming more specific. Here, we’re hearing details about what the paparazzi/press was trying to do to her, and all she wanted was to go grocery shopping. In March 2021 when all her friends finally spoke out on social media and defended her, the one I kept coming back to was from her friend Silver Tree, because it was so specific. She talked about Meghan stocking the house with your favorite snacks before you arrived, or Meghan preparing a playlist for her friends, etc. Those are specific things that, in my opinion, trump “omg she was so scary she was Black and she wanted us to work!!!!!”

    • Ginger says:

      Agree. We have names and specific examples on how nice Meghan and Harry are. With the British press its unnamed sources and very vague examples. We all know who people are going to believe.

    • Eurydice says:

      I’m happy H&M are pushing back, but I don’t know. Perhaps this is good for an American audience, but I think the British audience is a lost cause. Specific named sources won’t make a difference to the BM. We’ve had 6 days of “Meghan wore a red dress” with actual photographic and documented proof of how the event went, and the BM are still sticking to their lies, even doubling down.

      • Jais says:

        Definitely for a certain segment of the uk it’s a lost cause. Possibly for the majority? Maaaybe. But I think there’s a fair portion of young people who don’t see Meghan as she is painted in the BM.

  4. Amy Bee says:

    I’ll always believe that Meghan was the one being bullied by staff and members of the Royal Family not the other way around. Meghan has had to put up with alot because of her relationship with Harry. I hope she knows how strong she is and that she gets everything she wishes for herself.

    • Becks1 says:

      Agreed, and I think the reason the “investigation results” or whatever were never made public was because it would show that she was the victim. I also think that report would reveal a lot about horrible William and Kate are behind the scenes and that’s why it was quickly shelved. Protect the heir at all costs.

      • Amy Bee says:

        Indeed.

      • sevenblue says:

        @Becks1, if the report showed anything negative about Meghan, they would leak it by now and the tabloids would make it first page news. They could leak just the Meghan parts. The fact that it was kept private shows that they have nothing. Even the content of Meghan’s letter to Charles got leaked.

      • Amy Bee says:

        @sevenblue: It would absolutely been leaked if Meghan was found to be a bully. The fact that it hasn’t means she wasn’t a bully and that staff and family members were.

      • Jais says:

        Yeah, there was absolutely no way that details weren’t released bc they were trying to protect Meghan. I think they tried to spin that when they said the investigation results would stay private. If they had any concrete detail of anything it would have been used years ago. Meghan was the victim. She was never the bully.

    • Monika says:

      Exactly, Amy Bee! Steve Davies said: ” There’s one huge lesson I learned from her: It’s give respect to get respect.” I am wondering how much respect was given to Meghan, hearing about the awful nicknames the staffers gave to Meghan not much.

  5. Dee(2) says:

    I think that Harry and Meghan have probably also given the go-ahead to a lot of their friends and employees or former employees that they are okay with them going on the record now. I think that they are in a good enough space professionally and personally, that they aren’t worried about the blowback from the BRF or that they will be seen as whining or not taken seriously as they try to get their own professional endeavors off the ground. You can’t keep rehashing the same unnamed sources about how awful someone was 6 years ago, when someone from 15 years ago and someone from 5 days ago will go on the record of how awesome this person is.

    I have said a few times recently that this has to be boring at this point even for the most fervent haters. There is no new information that’s being introduced it’s the same KP stories that have appeared in seventeen books and in daily articles for years. Even casual observers who don’t pay attention to the royals outside of weddings or huge events, will giggle with shorthand about “oh something happened the British media probably is going to create some horrible story about Meghan next”. People know now.

    • Christine says:

      Exactly. Even if you have personally knit your own effigies of Meghan that you stick pins in daily, there is no new information. There’s tons of evidence of her going about her life trying to help people, but absolutely no one who isn’t associated with Salty Isle has a bad word to say about her. What are you doing with your life if you have this much energy still built up to hate her so violently?

  6. Frustrated says:

    I don’t particularly doubt this story, the guy sounds sincere, but I find it really frustrating that this narrative even exists. Look, celebrities – royal or not – are kind of a different breed and by dint of all the attention they get and the way that they’re looked after by studios, agents, managers etc, they aren’t like the rest of us anymore. That’s true for ALL of them, whether they’re infamously awful like Naomi Campbell or famously nice like Tom Hanks. So why’s Meghan got to be different? Why has she got to be either a Mean Cruel Boss Who Makes Staffers Cry, OR Literally The Nicest Person You Ever Met In Your Life Who Sends Care Packages? Why can’t she just be a normal celebrity, sometimes thoughtful, sometimes entitled, who means well but maybe occasionally screws up? Why’s she got to get this level of scrutiny?

    Again, this isn’t a slam on the site or this Steve Davies guy or Meghan’s press people who have probably rounded up some staffers to say she’s great and counter that other story, that’s their job. It’s absolutely nuts that things have got to this toxic level with her and that’s down to the UK tabloids and the Royals’ weirdo officials. But jeez, it’s so annoying that she is discussed like NO OTHER CELEBRITY. I can’t imagine what it’s like for her to be at the eye of this storm, all the time, probably forever.

    • Amy Bee says:

      This is necessary because the British establishment has sought to demonize her and to destroy her reputation and career. I hope more people come out and speak about her as a good person.

      • Christine says:

        Yep. I would never speak or write another word about the British royal family if all of their targeted smears on Meghan and Harry stopped tomorrow. It is up to people who knew her, know her, and others who are just paying attention, to stand up to a level of abuse I have personally never seen before.

        A lot of people hate Donald Trump, because he’s earned it. Meghan fell in love and started a family. She has done nothing to deserve any of this.

      • Where'sMyTiara says:

        @Amy Bee …and this isn’t the first woman the BRF, courtiers, and the BM have done this to.

        They used the exact same playbook on Diana when she broke free from the toxic system, after they also failed to break her. Palaces cut her off and took her security; courtiers tipped off the press who sounded the horn, and then proceeded to hunt her like she was the last vixen in England.

        The reason people are still paying attention is because Cluck has pulled this 🐂💩 before with the whole enacting stochastic terrorism on his own fam thing.

    • kirk says:

      Perhaps you can explain to the rest of us why British tabloids run dozens of negative stories on her in a day. Every day. Or why DailyFail has a tabbed link for them on their website to spew misinformation. Even now, try going to youtube and search for something like “meghan chla gala” and see the specious junk that youtube will serve up for you, with providers names like ‘murky meg’ or ‘royal news xxxxx [whatever].’ For those of us who were Meghan fans from her Suits days before she became associated with Harry, it has been quite an education in how Brit media operates, and how it exists, at least in part, to serve the crown. Even supposedly respectable media like Financial Times descend to guttersnipe level when Meghan is in the story. You explain it @Frustrated.

    • Eurydice says:

      The thing is that Meghan has gone beyond being a real world celebrity. She’s become a character in a major soap opera that people have been following for years. How many movies and documentaries and books and magazines have been devoted to the Royal Family and their lives? It’s the world’s longest running reality show and every action becomes a new plot point.

      • swaz says:

        And it’s not going away any time soon 😒😒 there was an article about Wallis Simpson two weeks ago, how long has that been, 70 years 🤢

      • kirk says:

        The big plot point as far as H-M is concerned is they’ve punctured the pinnacle of the ordained by God myth. Consequently it’s open season on them by palace perfects. And as lanne notes below, there’s racism, xenophobia and ‘not our class dear.’ While perusing various comments, and the duplicate content, it’s pretty obvious that bots have been bought – probably by palace(s), but you won’t see a line item for it in the budget.

    • bisynaptic says:

      🎯
      The reason is that, by marrying Harry and “officially” joining the BRF, she inadvertently trod on some old British bugaboos and released a hornet’s nest of hatred and fury.

  7. Inge says:

    I’m glad that when all this happened CBS, staff and her castmates rallied around her. It was awful what they subjected her to and I still feel sad how Bogart got traumatized.

    Anyway he confirms what we all know. She’s a nice person. The only people complaining are either not used to a professional environment or jealous of her work ethic.

    • Kelsey says:

      Remember how everyone wanted to say Meghan was soooo mean for abandoning her dog and him not being good enough for “her new life” while in reality, the poor baby was scared out of his mind and protective of her, as her surroundings were invaded more and more. That story made me so sad- I can’t imagine how sad Meghan was giving him to her friends because she knew he would no longer thrive with what her new realty would be. 🙁

      Meghan really had to give up so much.

  8. Lovely that people who are willing to give their names are saying what a good and kind person she is. That takes guts knowing that the crazies will try and find him on social media and harass him with threats.

  9. lanne says:

    Meghan Markle, the “black American showgirl” was set up to fail, and expected to fail. The vitriol comes from the fact that she was actually good at the job, even better than the white folks with the “proper bloodlines.” I’m convinved the plan was to bully her out of the country by any means necessary, hopefully before the wedding. I’m waiting for someone to connect the dots between Jason Knauf and Thomas Markle and his fake heart attack. Meghan was supposed to leave, Harry was supposed to be humiliated, and everything in the House of Windsor would go on as before. Had she broken down, left Harry, quit as she was “supposed to,” she would have probably got the Fergie treatment: she couldn’t handle being a royal–we tried, but, sigh, it was too challenging for someone like her, All of Fergies mistakes made her a laughingstock, but because she sucked up to the royal family so much, she could receive some crumbs. Meghan’s “fergie treatment” would have been coupled with racism–a descendant of slaves couldn’t possibly have succeeded as a royal–but she would have received a little condescending pity like Fergie: “It was too hard for her.”

    I think the hatred got so bad because she was so damn good, which made her a threat to the mediocre Windsors. They can’t have a black actress from the US outshining them.

    All these years later, it’s time for the truth to come out. It’s time for the people who knew her and worked with her to push back against the slander she’s faced. Serial killers haven’t gotten the vitriol and slander Meghan got. It’s time for the truth of how badly she was treated by the Windsors to come out. It’s no wonder to me that Harry has turned his back so completely on his family. Their treatment of Meghan has shown him exactly who his family is, and I think he hated what he saw. I think of all the people in the US who are seeing who their Trump supporting family members really are, and how their hatred has soured their relationships. It’s the same thing for Harry–different context, same sentiment.

    Anyway, I hope this is the start of many people speaking up for her.

    • Kingston says:

      @lanne

      You always cut right thru to the heart of the matter concerning the windsors and their lackeys’ treatment of M. But even you appear not to fully grasp the magnitude of the danger which hangs over H&M (& their babies) and the fact that the more successful they are, the more of a threat theyre perceived to be by the brits, not just by the Machiavellians in the monarchy, but every brit royalist whose sense of self is wrapped up in the monumental facade of “royalty” which fronts the entire british identity.

      M came, she saw, she showed her brilliant capabilities (with projects that STILL, to this day, continue to benefit many individuals and families in britain) and she voluntarily turned her back on it all, telling Oprah in their 2021 interview:

      “”All the grandeur surrounding this stuff is an attachment I don’t personally have. I have been a waitress, an actress, a princess, a duchess, and I’ve always just been Meghan. The most important title I will ever have is Mom.”

      M was only speaking her truth, but every word of that statement is like a dagger to the heart of every royalist brit. They “have her up” for that (as we say in my neck of the woods) and will never forgive her for what they insist is her “dissing” them. They live for the day when she “surrenders,” begs forgiveness and seeks to return to the “royal family” so they can make her pay for leaving them with their collective tongues hanging out, wanting her to be as subservient to their monarchy as they are.

      They still cant believe its not going to happen. Some of them even write about how it keeps them up at night as they fantasize about the depth of depravity of their desire to see her suffer at their hands.

      And so, the threat to the Sussexes is real. And it grows.

      H is very much aware, as their history has shown, of the extent of the reach of the palace’s Machiavellians and the relentlessness of their diabolical persistence.

      • Christine says:

        I don’t think anyone who regularly visits this site is under any illusion that Meghan isn’t in grave danger.

      • kirk says:

        And speaking of “history” — plenty of British people think that the only history that really matters is British history. Which is intricately bound up with their royal family. And sanitized for public consumption and control.

  10. Izzy says:

    I could maybe believe that once some of the palace lackeys showed their true azzez to Meghan, her demeanor with them changed from warm and friendly to professional and polite. They would deserve it too. I could definitely see those same lackeys then crying about how she isn’t groveling to them anymore.

    It’s still more likely that the bullying thing was entirely made up based on someone getting an email and using the timestamp on it to go after her.

    I’m really glad to see more pushback on this BS narrative.

  11. Jais says:

    I truly can’t imagine being Meghan’s friend or even acquaintance over all these years and watching as an entire false storyline is created about her. A bunch of royal reporters and their royal sources saying that Meghan is a psychotic diva and a social-climber. I appreciate anyone going on the record and saying how she really is from their experience. There were some people side-eyeing that Meghan went to us weekly and not a more prestigious paper and yet it was a good call imo.

  12. SH says:

    I hope we all get beyond the idea that every pap show is pre-arranged and setup and only time a celebrity is papped it is because the celebrity wants it. There are of course plenty of setup shots, but when it comes to a-list celebrities or news stories that interest the British tabloids the true stalker paps still exist.

  13. Jks says:

    I appreciate him speaking up but I wish he had not used the word paranoid and I didn’t like the way the article weaved his quotes together. The nice things he says about her are in quotes but the staff complaining is reported as a fact.

    • kirk says:

      Re: “the staff complaining [about her] is reported as fact.” Which begs a a few questions that were never publicly asked or answered by BRFCo & Associates. Which staff, specifically? How many of the staff? When did the staff complain? When did the incidents occur that impelled the complaining staff to complain? Where did the alleged misdeeds take place that the staff is complaining about? What was the exact nature of the staff complaints, i.e. what, exactly, did she do to cause complaint? How many transgressions is she charged with? How many times did they complain? Who did they complain to? Etc, etc, etc.

  14. J says:

    I have been a firsthand witness to bad actors who will say evil things to destroy, yes destroy, normal people … watched it in my own circumstances for 5 years from afar and one year in the heart of it. They make it up and it is unreal. It’s hard to believe unless you go through something like this but these bad actors are dangerous. The power of the spoken and written word for malicious intent is dangerous. So glad someone in a nightmare like this is getting sunlight and justice even if it isn’t their family. SD is a first hand witness who spoke out truthfully against an industry that sells product based on hate (dangerous). Britain was the first destination I wanted to visit as a young adult woman during the Silver Jubilee. In my head it extraordinarily met every expectation for history, warmth and romanticism and I have traveled the world and attended embassy schools overseas. Sadly my opinion has altered, not in my love of history, but in other ways. Maybe I grew up and saw reality (heaven knows my country has its bad actors too) but the things that have been written about MM are unquestionably meant to ruin, cause mental injury, and are dangerous. Her husband was right to remove them from source danger. “Her or Us” clearly was hard for everyone but lives are at stake and it takes all my energy to keep people I love from falling into despair and hopelessness dealing with bad actors.

    • Saucy&Sassy says:

      J, I’m sorry you went through all of that and that you continue to deal with the fall out with people you love. I agree with you that what is happening is done very deliberately. If anyone questions that, all people have to do is look at the media in the US during the presential race. The damage that the media has and is doing is unimaginable, but it’s happening. Something needs to happen to make sure they can’t continue to ‘brainwash’ people.

  15. bisynaptic says:

    FFS—One more time, people: you’re not paranoid if they’re really after you.

  16. QuiteContrary says:

    This is who Meghan is: Considerate, warm, down-to-earth. It’s revealing that the place she most wanted to go to was a grocery store … because she genuinely loves normal activities like cooking good food. Because she’s an amazingly normal person, despite her circumstances.

    I imagine Kate would want to go to a lavish resort in Mustique where she could drink crack baby cocktails and have the waitstaff cater to her every whim.

  17. Vuyelwa Ncube says:

    As she’s always been. A sweetheart

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