Prince Harry and Meghan Markle paid almost £90,000 to Michelle Obama’s former press secretary for PR support, according to their foundation’s tax returns.
The money was paid by the Archewell Foundation – Prince Harry and Meghan’s charitable organisation – to a PR company run by top US political spin doctor Katie McCormick Lelyveld, who has worked for Hillary Clinton and the former Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.
Ms Lelyveld was the press secretary for Mrs Obama for most of her first term as US First Lady, between 2007 and 2011.
A tax filing for 2021 was recently put up on the Archewell website, showing $110,000 had been paid to the PR company KMLSA LLC – the equivalent of just over £89,000.
The filing says the money was paid for ‘strategic support for social impact PR’, and listed it in the section ‘independent contractors’.
The website for KMLSA says its strategic advisors are ‘the team national and global leaders turn to to navigate challenges with reputational, political, philanthropic, legal and financial lenses’, the Sun reports.
Almost £175,000 was also paid for the same purpose to Invisible Hand LLC, a company run by the Archewell Foundation’s senior strategic advisor Genevieve Roth.
Invisible Hand’s website describes the firm as ‘a social impact and culture change agency that harnesses the power of creativity and storytelling to propel the world forward’.
The tax returns also appear to show both Harry and Meghan work only one hour a week each for their foundation.
That would bring their total working year to just 52 hours – the same amount that some people work in an average week.
According to LBC, Archewell said one hour per week is the standard amount that non-profits disclose for board participation.
The Duke of Sussex spent some of this week in London for a hearing in his claim against Associated Newspapers Ltd over allegations of unlawful information-gathering.
In 2021, Meghan reportedly cold-called a number of US senators on their personal phones to press them over a law for paid family leave.
Senator Shelley Capito, a Republican, said at the time that she had no idea how the Duchess got her number.
‘I’m in my car. I’m driving. It says caller ID blocked. Honestly… I thought it was Senator Manchin,’ the Sen. Capito told the BBC.
‘His calls come in blocked. And she goes “Senator Capito?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ She said, ‘This is Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex.”
