Meghan Markle's PR guru Ashley Hansen makes shock career move
Ashley Hansen, who stepped down as the Head of Communications for Meghan's Archewell last year, now appears to be representing Real Housewives of Orange County star Katie Ginella.
Ginella announced their partnership on social media last month, writing, 'Adding another member to team Ginella. Let me introduce you to Ashley Hansen.'
Much like Meghan before her, Ginella is currently dealing with a serious PR crisis.
On the latest season of RHOC, the 41-year-old has found herself on the outs with all of her castmates after being accused of repeatedly lying.
She was also accused of colluding with Bravo bloggers to 'leak stories' about her castmates, which she said on an episode of Watch What Happens Live was 'not true'.
She also denied calling blogger Christina Huber aka The Bravo Babe, but Huber later produced screenshots of their call log to prove otherwise.
Additionally, Ginella was exposed for secretly recording co-star Shannon Beador at a photoshoot and then playing the recording for two other women on the show.
Ginella admitted to secretly recording Beador, and then said that she had played the recording to Alexis Bellino and Jen Pedranti. However, she later walked back the admission and said that she had only played it for her husband Matt, leaving some viewers confused over what actually happened.
In a recent interview with Us Weekly, Ginella defended herself by claiming that her castmates were 'looking for anything to point out that I've done wrong' because she was 'so well received' by fans of the show during her rookie season last year.
In another interview with Page Six this week, Ginella accused two of her castmates, Jen Pedranti and Gretchen Rossi, of sharing a racially 'inappropriate' video online.
'There's a very inappropriate video going around where two girls are pretending to fight, squinting their eyes and making Asian faces to Asian sounds,' she said.
'It's very hurtful and inappropriate. It's 2025 and I think we should read the room,' added Ginella, who is the first Asian-American cast member on RHOC.
Rossi responded to Ginella, telling Page Six, 'The video we made was not directed at Katie and was not meant to be hateful. Once it was addressed to us that it could be taken offensively, we took it down immediately.'
Hansen was previously Meghan and Prince Harry's PR chief for more than two years.
She was also the Head of Communications for Archewell and oversaw the publicity for some of Markle's various projects, including her controversial Archetypes podcast.
She stepped down from her role last year to launch her own PR consulting firm, Three Gate Strategies.
Hansen is still advising the Duke and Duchess through her new firm, whilst providing oversight to their international communications team.
Commenting on the change, Meghan said in a statement last year: 'We are so proud of Ashley, especially as a female entrepreneur.
'We look forward to having her focused expertise on our business and creative projects and her continued oversight of our communications team.
'My husband and I are excited to be alongside Ashley as she builds something extraordinarily special with her firm.'
Hansen, meanwhile, said: 'I am incredibly grateful to The Duke and Duchess for their continued trust in me. Their unwavering support and belief in my new firm has been meaningful and is a testament to their leadership.
'I knew when they first hired me that they were giving me the opportunity of a lifetime and I couldn't be happier to continue working together.'
Hansen reflected on her working relationship with Harry and Meghan in an interview with Dear Media earlier this year.
'There's never a day where they're not in the news,' she said.
'With most celebrities, there's an ebb and flow—a movie comes out, there's press, then it dies down. But with Meghan, it's constant. Like, presidential-level constant.'
She added, 'We read everything. Twitter, Quora, Reddit—we'd monitor it all because you have to know what's out there.'
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex later replaced Hansen with Meredith Maines.
In a statement, Maines said: 'I'm honored to partner with Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, to highlight the amazing work they are doing through Archewell, their broader business portfolio, and nonprofit work.'
She was most recently employed at Lightspeed Venture Partners and previously held positions at Google, Hulu and American idol.
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