Jenny Afia: meet the London lawyer who claims there was a ‘war against Meghan’ in the new Megflix doc

Evidence that there was a negative briefing from Buckingham Palace against Harry and Meghan “to suit other people’s agendas”.

This is the bombshell claim Jenny Afia makes in the latest instalment of Megflix, Harry and Meghan’s bombshell Netflix documentary, out today.

The celebrity lawyer has powerfully defended the Duchess of Sussex on several occasions now – in Amol Rajan’s BBC Two documentary, The Princes and the Press, this time last year, then on his sister podcast, Harry, Meghan and the Media, shortly afterwards – and now she’s out there in front of the cameras again, as one of a series of talking heads brought out for part two of the couple’s bombshell new Netflix series, Harry & Meghan.

The straight-talking Cambridge graduate represented the Duchess of Sussex against the Mail on Sunday in the High Court in 2020 and since then she’s made a series of bold claims on Meghan’s behalf. Last year she told Rajan that allegations the duchess was a “difficult or demanding boss” were “just not true” and that the term bullying is “used very freely”, after Meghan gave her permission to speak to the broadcaster for his podcast and documentary.

In footage released today, Afia continues her staunch defence of the duchess. “There was a real kind of war against Meghan,” she says when talking about her client’s treatment by Buckingham Palace pre-Megxit. “This barrage of negative articles about the breakdown of the relationship with her father was the final straw in a campaign of negative, nasty coverage about her.”

So what else do we know about Afia and her route to the heard of Team Sussex? From her A-list clients to her journalist husband, here’s everything you need to know.

A working mother with a funny side

Afia has worked for various high-profile celebrities over the years: Adele, Johnny Depp and Elton John are among her most starry clients so far and she is clearly impressed by those in the public eye. “I really admire talent, I love the celebrity world, and it’s amazing that these people who are world leaders – I mean, they have to pay to speak to me,” she once said in an interview.

The Cambridge graduate represented Johnny Depp in his defamation case against The Sun two years ago (they lost), but it was when she started representing the Duchess of Sussex in her High Court battle against the Mail on Sunday that same year that Afia really shot into the public eye.

She currently works as Head of Legal at law firm Schillings, which represented Brad Pitt in his divorce from Angelina Jolie. Afia has worked there for the last 15 years and now heads up its entertainment practice, having previously trained in the City.

According to Schillings’ website, she is an award-winning privacy and reputation lawyer who represents many of the world’s most successful people. “Jenny is ranked as a Tier 1 leader in her field by Chambers & Partners, the Spear’s Reputation Management index, and is recognised in Billboard’s 2021 Top Music Lawyers,” a description reads on the site, next to a headshot of the dark-haired lawyer smiling in a smart purple blazer and gold necklace.

“Jenny was a member of the Children’s Commissioner’s Digital Task Force, as part of which she re-wrote social media platform’s terms and conditions so children could understand them. She was also on the Steering Committee of children’s charity 5Rights and co-authored with Baroness Kidron the report: ‘Disrupted Childhood: the cost of persuasive design’. Jenny is also on the UK advisory board for Common Sense Media.”

Little is given away about Afia’s personal interests or private life but a closer look at her LinkedIn suggests she has a funny side. Alongside her legal career listings, she also lists two rather more surprising headteacher roles.

“Responsible for pupils’ rapid decline and hatred for all things educational. Skilled at turning ipads on and off,” she writes as a job description for one, a ‘Reluctant Head Teacher’ posting at what she calls ‘Afia Ferrer Home School’ between January and March this year – a clue that she has a family, and personality.

Afia’s Twitter also offers an insight into her personality. Her picture is a cartoon that paints her as a sharp, lipstick-wearing professional and her bio simply reads: “I’m a lawyer, not a cat.”

A scroll down her feed provides other interesting details: she feels passionately about protecting children’s online safety and digital wellbeing; she lives a glamorous lifestyle, appearing in Vogue and attending ceremonies including the BRIT Awards; and despite her privacy specialism, she’s not afraid to speak out publicly.

She’s appeared on several podcasts about her career, she’s written various pieces for Huffington Post, and the recent royal documentaries are far from her first TV appearances.

In July 2018 she appeared on the Victoria Derbyshire Show as Cliff Richard was awarded £210,000 in damages against the BBC, and in September 2017 she spoke on BBC News about Rebel Wilson’s libel win.

Peloton workouts and a passion for privacy

Afia hasn’t publicly disclosed how many children she has, but an interview with The Times in February gives more details about her marriage and personal life. Asked what the funniest thing that has ever happened to her is, she describes “sending a legal notice to my (future) husband after our second date. He was a journalist for a tabloid newspaper at the time and found himself on my wrong side early in our relationship.”

Afia’s Twitter suggests her husband still works as a journalist: specifically, Richard Ferrer, editor of Jewish News UK. “Great piece by my favourite eye-candy,” Afia wrote, tweeting his article on laser eye surgery in October 2019, and in September 2020 she called him “the one journalist I’ll never sue”.

Privacy might be his wife’s specialism but Ferrer, too, isn’t afraid to disclose titbits about their marriage, plugging his wife’s interviews and calling her “wifey” on Twitter.

“Celebrate #JennyAfia#Schillings#DuchessofSussex#Meghan‘s historic legal victory with this giant @JennyAfia poster from Amazon,” he tweeted in February after the duchess’ High Court success, joking: “Ours is in the downstairs loo”.

Other details in Afia’s interview with The Times suggest she’s a fitness fanatic with a girly side. She lists Peloton instructor Robin Arzón as one of her greatest career inspirations (”I finish her online workouts wanting to be a better lawyer and convinced I can take on the world”) and says she used to turn up to corporate litigation work reading Grazia, while colleagues were reading the Financial Times.

Afia’s love of magazines also offers a clue about the area of law she went on to specialise in: entertainment. Afia told The Times that leaving the City to specialise in privacy for public figures was the best decision she’s ever made in her career. How would she like to be remembered? “As someone who helped to stop arbitrary interference with people’s privacy and, by my kids, as a great mum.”

Defending a duchess

Afia says the whole reason much of her work falls “below the radar” is that she manages to snuff out media reports before they go to press. But she’s certainly seemed happy to pop her head above the radar since working for the Sussexes.

Afia acted for the duchess in the High Court in 2020. Asked what the main issues in the case were at the time, she said “whether a newspaper has the right to publish the contents of a self-evidently private letter without the prior consent or knowledge of the writer.

“The question for summary judgment was whether the duchess’s case was so strong that it could be decided without a trial. This was important as trying to protect privacy shouldn’t lead to further intrusion.”

So how did she come to represent the Sussexes and what’s her relationship like with them? Clearly a positive one, if Afia’s TV interviews paint an accurate picture.

“This narrative that no-one could work for the Duchess of Sussex, that she was too difficult or demanding a boss, and that everyone had to leave, is just not true,” she says in part-two of Rajan’s 2021 documentary.

Asked by Rajan how accurate the bullying stories were about the duchess in 2018, she looks calm and collected. “Those stories were false,” she tells him bluntly, sitting opposite the broadcaster in a cream blouse and royal blue blazer.

In the podcast episode that followed, she takes her defence of the duchess further. “I think the first thing is to be really clear about what bullying is because the term gets used very, very casually,” she tells Rajan. “My daughter called me a bully last week when I asked her to brush her teeth – she’s seven years old. So the term is used very freely and it’s a very, very damaging term as we know, particularly I think for career women.

“What bullying actually means is improperly using power repeatedly and deliberately to hurt someone, physically or emotionally. The Duchess of Sussex absolutely denies ever doing that.”

Afia then brings in her own experience of working with the duchess, adding: “Knowing her as I do I can’t believe she would ever do that. I wasn’t there at the time but it doesn’t match my experience of her at all and I’ve seen her at very, very stressful times.”

In this week’s Megflix installment, she makes a new claim: “There was a real kind of war against Meghan and I’ve certainly seen evidence that there was negative briefing from the Palace against Harry and Meghan to suit other people’s agendas,” Afia tells her interviewers as part of Harry & Meghan.

“This barrage of negative articles about the breakdown of the relationship with her father was the final straw in a campaign of negative, nasty coverage about her.”

Whether we’ll see that evidence Afia speaks of remains unclear but in the meantime, one thing’s for sure: she’s certainly not staying below the radar anymore.