Another Meghan Markle Staffer Will Be Leaving After the Birth of the Royal Baby

The Sussexes simply cannot hold onto a secretary. Several months after Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s private secretary Samantha Cohen said she plans to depart their service after the birth of royal baby 2.0, Markle’s assistant private secretary Amy Pickerill has given notice. She, too, will bow out of royal duties following the birth of the royal couple’s firstborn, E! reported this weekend.

Pickerill, whom E! described as Markle’s “right-hand woman,” has been with the Duchess of Sussex since she relocated to the U.K. ahead of her wedding last year. “She and Meghan are very close and it’s all very amicable,” a source told NBC, per E!, explaining that Pickerill plans to act as an advisor to Markle in the longer term.

Prince Harry also recently lost his “right-hand man,” Edward Lane Fox, and Markle’s been plagued by turnover among her staff over the past few months, including losing her personal assistant Melissa Touabti and her female bodyguard—whose name has not been disclosed for security reasons, and who was the first woman to hold such a high position in royal security—for unclear reasons. It could have something to do with how hard Meghan Markle works: so hard that, apparently, her staff just cannot keep up.

“To lose one member of the household could happen to anyone. To lose three in a few months is starting to look like a stampede,” an anonymous source told the Daily Mail when news broke that Cohen, who was actually hired by Queen Elizabeth II herself, would soon be departing the royal household. The measured departure of several staffers, accompanied by ample advance notice—forget two weeks; these trusty employees have given months’ notice—might not quite count as a “stampede,” but it almost certainly hints at the excessive pressure placed on Meghan and Harry’s household. And these exits all only fuel the tabloid cycle. Your move, Daily Mail.