Who is Meghan Markle’s global press secretary Ashley Hansen as she responds to King Charles correspondence?

While Prince Harry will be sat in row 10 of Westminster Abbey on 6 May, Meghan Markle will be celebrating Archie’s fourth birthday back in Montecito. 

The decision for Meghan to stay across the pond has led to multiple questions being asked by the British press, with numerous citing that the Duchess of Sussex decided to respond ‘no’ to the RSVP as a result of previous correspondence with King Charles III.

The correspondence in question is an alleged exchange when Meghan reportedly wrote to the monarch after she appeared on Oprah Winfrey in 2021 in which she stated there was an ‘unconscious bias’ in the Royal Family among other bombshell revelations.

However, in light of The Telegraph publishing details about the correspondence and suggesting this fuelled Meghan’s decision to stay away on 6 May, Meghan’s global press secretary Ashley Hansen stated that this claim was ‘frankly ridiculous.’

Harper’s Bazaar reported: “The Duchess of Sussex is going about her life in the present, not thinking about correspondence from two years ago related to conversations from four years ago. Any suggestion otherwise is false and frankly ridiculous.”

As Ashley Hansen encouraged the ‘tabloid media and royal correspondents’ to stop creating an ‘exhausting circus’, PeopleWorld takes a look at the global press secretary:

Prior to working with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry as their global press secretary, Ashley Momtaheni Hansen was the Vice President of Global Communications and Media Relations at the Universal Filmed Entertainment Group.

Her resume also includes positions at United Talent Agency, Annapurna Pictures and Good Morning America after starting her career at Warner Bros.

It was in May 2022 when news first broke that Hansen would take on the role of leading global communications for Meghan and Harry’s foundation Archewell before Miranda Barbot joined the communications team as director in December of last year.

Since joining Meghan and Harry’s team, Ashley has spoken for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex on numerous occasions, previously providing quotes in response to the royal’s Netflix series, the couple’s decision to step back from royal duties and announcing staff departures from Archewell.

While Ashley tends to lead a sheltered life online with a private Instagram account (@eatpraylola), she was pictured with fellow former Iranian colleague Mandana Dayani, president of Archewell, and Meghan Markle in October when Dayani posted on Instagram in the wake of Mahsa Amini’s death.

Dayani captioned the post: “I am so grateful to work with incredible women like Meghan and my fellow Iranian colleague and friend, Ashley Momtaheni, as we continue to highlight the bravery and courage of the women and young girls on the frontlines of one of the most important feminist movements of our lives.”