Queen Camilla Recently Rehired Her Longtime Aide Who Has Uncomfortably Close Ties to the British Tabloids

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Queen Camilla is raising a few eyebrows with her newest employee, who is actually a rehire from years past. Amanda MacManus, the queen’s former trusted aide, is back in the royal fold after resigning last year. She will now head Camilla’s online book club, The Queen’s Reading Room.

MacManus is famous for rehabbing Queen Camilla’s image after Princess Diana passed away in 1997 and it became clear that King Charles III wanted to make her his wife. As good as her PR skills are, there is a reason the press has come around to giving Camilla favorable headlines. MacManus’s former husband, James MacManus, was an executive for Rupert Murdoch, owner of many of the British tabloids, so it was suddenly very easy for Camilla to look good in the media.

The return of MacManus to the palace should certainly raise eyebrows to anyone who read Prince Harry’s memoir, Spare, because he even mentions Camilla’s PR strategy. “Shortly after our private meetings with her, she began to develop her long-term strategy, a campaign directed at marriage and with time, the Crown (with the blessing of our father, we supposed),” he wrote. MacManus was even fired in 1998 when she was accused of leaking the details of Prince Williams first meeting with Camilla. 

She eventually issued a public statement about the “distress” she caused the palace. “Above all, my shame is that I have failed those who demand loyalty and trust, particularly my remarkable employer Mrs. Parker Bowles,” she wrote in her statement. While she was exonerated and rehired by Camilla soon after, it’s hard not to believe that she probably did plant the story to get good press for her boss. MacManus’ new job only involves a book club, but with her chummy ties to the media, there might be a new positive Queen Camilla PR campaign in the works.

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