Lady-in-waiting Susan Hussey resigns over racist ‘abuse’ row

A black British charity founder has said being “interrogated” about where she was “really” from during a royal reception was a form of “abuse”.

The late Queen’s lady-in-waiting, Lady Susan Hussey, has resigned amid uproar over her questions to Ngozi Fulani during a domestic abuse charity event at Buckingham Palace on Tuesday.

Fulani told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that “it was like an interrogation”, and asked “how this can happen in a space that's supposed to protect women against all kinds of violence”.

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“Although it’s not physical violence, it is an abuse,” added Fulani, boss of the Sistah Space charity.

Hussey’s “racist remarks” will “take an already bruised palace two steps back”, said Caroline Davies in The Guardian. “This is already an acutely sensitive time for the House of Windsor,” wrote Davies, amid reports that the “long-awaited” Netflix documentary on the Duke and Duchess of Sussex will air next week.

As a palace aide, 83-year-old Hussey – who is a godmother to Prince William – was said to have been tasked with helping Meghan Markle “settle into royal life prior to and after her wedding to Prince Harry”, said The Independent. In his book Revenge: Meghan, Harry And The War Between The Windsors, released in July, author Tom Bower claimed that Hussey had predicted that the marriage would “all end in tears”.

Following Hussey’s resignation, a former close aide to Queen Elizabeth reportedly accused the Palace of having acted with “indecent haste” in announcing her departure. Hussey “has been thrown under a bus” as part of a “massive overreaction”, the unnamed source told the Daily Mail’s Richard Kay.

Critics who view the royal household as an “irredeemable hotbed of bigotry” will cite Hussey’s comments as evidence, said a leader in The Sun. But the Palace’s “rapid and robust response” is “more revealing about whether such archaic attitudes are tolerated there”, added the paper. And “they plainly are not”.