Jessica Mulroney’s husband hits back after race scandal that led to alleged rift with Meghan Markle

The husband of Meghan Markle’s former best friend Jessica Mulroney has called a black influencer a ‘racist scammer’.

Ben Mulroney explained in a podcast how he and his wife were canceled in June 2020 after Sasha Exeter accused Jessica of displaying ‘textbook white privilege’.

Meghan reportedly cut off contact with Jessica, who was her maid of honor at her wedding to Prince Harry eight years ago, after she became embroiled in an online race row.

The conflict following George Floyd’s death began when Jessica allegedly became angry with Sasha Exeter’s “public call to action” post about the Black Lives Matter movement.

According to Sasha, the two then discussed the importance of the influencers ‘talking’. He later claimed Jessica ‘threatened’ him during the exchange and Ms Mulroney apologized.

Making a spectacular debut on the ‘No But Seriously True’ podcast, Ben said: ‘A racist grifter decided to take advantage of the George Floyd moment and make up a whole fiction about my wife and the country and bent over backwards and said: “Okay, well, here’s our hero and here’s our villain and everything was taken from my wife overnight.”‘

Jessica was once Meghan’s best friend, and her twin sons and daughter served as pageboys and bridesmaids when she married Harry at St George’s Chapel in Windsor.

The two have been close since Meghan filmed Suits in Toronto, with Jessica taking on many of Meghan’s chic outfits.

But TV presenter and fashion stylist Jessica faced backlash after she was accused of threatening Sasha Exeter in private messages.

Jessica’s relationship with Meghan Markle also appears to have cooled in recent years following the Black Lives Matter controversy. Photo taken with Ben and Meghan in 2016

Shortly after posting the clip about Jessica, Sasha Exeter claimed she was targeted by trolls who sent her death threats (pictured)

According to Sasha, Jessica posted the messages after urging social media influencers to use their platforms to support the Black Lives Matter movement following the death of George Floyd.

Sasha said: ‘I’ve been very vocal about wanting my peers and friends who have an online presence to speak up, stand up and use their voices for good to help combat what’s going on in this race war and what’s happening to the Black community.

‘A very well-known Canadian person named Jessica Mulroney took offense to a very general call to action I shared on my IG Stories.

‘And what happened next was a series of problematic behavior and antics that ultimately culminated in him sending me threats in writing.

‘Listen, I’m not calling Jess a racist in any way, but I will say this: She is very aware of her wealth and her perceived power and privilege because of the color of her skin.

‘And that, my friend, gave him a moment of confidence and he came to write for a living. It’s really textbook white privilege in my personal opinion.’

In a comment posted under the video, Jessica said she was ‘absolutely sorry’ and wrote: ‘As I told you privately, I had a very public and personal experience with my best friend where race was at the forefront. “It was extremely educational.”

Former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s son, Ben, later resigned from his position as host of Canadian television’s eTalk program in solidarity with his wife.

Jessica apologized several times but lost her hosting gig on Good Morning America.

But Ben now claims the scandal was ‘made up’.

He argued: ‘What the DMs show is not that this woman was being exploited by my wife’s white privilege, but that this woman made my wife angry and so my wife said, “If you’re going to threaten me, I’m going to threaten you.”‘

Sasha Exeter has been approached for comment.

Ben claimed his colleagues ‘seemed to buy into this lie’ and that was why he left his own television career.

Reports later claimed Meghan and Jessica’s friendship had ‘collapsed’ over the incident, but Ben recently insisted they remain on positive terms. Meghan never spoke about it.

In July 2025, it was revealed that Ben and Jessica had separated after 16 years of marriage.

It’s unknown whether the couple are divorced, but Ben referred to her as his ‘wife’ in last week’s podcast.

The Duchess of Sussex once said that when her friend, whom she affectionately calls Jess, ‘appeared, the room stood still’.

But Meghan reportedly cut off contact with him after he became embroiled in an online race debate linked to the Black Lives Matter movement.

Ms Mulroney recently told the Daily Mail that she would ‘never’ reveal what happened between them; Meanwhile, there were reports that he was considering writing a memoir and was offered a $1 million advance.

Jessica and Meghan were inseparable for several years after they met in Toronto, where the future duchess was filming Suits.

He helped keep the secret that Meghan was dating a prince and was the first friend the Duchess of Sussex called from the Kensington Palace grounds after Harry proposed.

Her twin sons John and Brian, then seven, even had the honor of carrying Meghan’s dress train down the aisle at St George’s Chapel in Windsor, while her daughter Ivy, then two, was a bridesmaid alongside Princess Charlotte at the royal wedding.

But Jessica was interrupted and effectively canceled by her former best friend after expressing her views on Black Lives Matter.

“She was upset about the end of their friendship,” an insider told the Daily Mail last year.

Jessica Mulroney and Meghan Markle in 2016. They were best friends but are no longer close following an online controversy regarding Black Lives Matter in 2020.

Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, onstage at the One805 Live Concert held at movie star Kevin Costner’s Santa Barbara mansion over the weekend

Online race feud left him ‘toxic’ on Toronto’s social scene.

Her television work then stalled and she resigned from the charity she had founded to support homeless women in Canada, the US and the UK; It is said that this decision caused him serious sadness.

Meghan allegedly cut off contact with him around the same time.

‘HE [Jessica] he was once Meghan’s closest confidant and keeper of her secrets. “He knows everything,” a source said.

Jessica went on to attend Meghan’s wedding to Prince Harry in 2018 after helping keep their dates in Canada and London secret in the summer of 2016.

In the 2022 Netflix documentary, Meghan shared footage of the night Prince Harry proposed in 2017, showing her friend FaceTiming her walking on the grounds of Kensington Palace.

Before marrying Prince Harry, the former actress frequently mentioned Jessica online and the pair regularly vacationed together.

Despite their close relationship, insiders claimed the Duchess permanently cut ties with Jessica after she was involved in a fight with influencer Sasha Exeter in 2020.

This could be the last straw for the Duchess. An insider told Page Six that the friendship was already on shaky ground because Meghan felt Jessica was trying to “make a career out of friendship.”

Meghan has since kept her distance from her former friend. Jessica was also not mentioned in Harry’s memoir, Spare.

Jessica with daughter Ivy and current Princess of Wales and Princess Charlotte at Meghan’s wedding in 2018

Jessica Mulroney splits from husband after 16 years of marriage (pictured together, with their three children)

Jessica was also not invited to appear on the Duchess’s latest project, With Love, Meghan, but others from her social circle were involved.

Meghan, who has carefully curated her own social media presence since January while launching her brand As Ever and promoting her Netflix series, has not been seen publicly with Jessica for five years.

The duo does not follow each other on social media.

Jessica has been completely silent about Meghan since Megxit.

The breakdown in their friendship appears to be linked to Jessica’s online feud with influencer Sasha Exeter over the Black Lives Matter movement.

The conflict following George Floyd’s death began when Jessica allegedly became angry with Sasha’s “general call to action” post about the movement.

The two then argued about the importance of ‘speaking openly’, according to Sasha.

Sasha said she felt ‘threatened’ by Jessica during the dispute and claimed the mother-of-three wrote: ‘I have also spoken to companies and people about the way you treated me fairly. You think your voice is important. It’s important that you express this with kindness and without shaming people who are just trying to learn. Good luck.’

Sasha, also from Toronto, said in the follow-up video: ‘What happened next was a series of problematic behavior and shenanigans.

‘I’m not calling Jess a racist in any way, but I will say this: She is very aware of her wealth and the perceived power and privilege because of the color of her skin, and that, my friends, has given her a moment of confidence to make a living as a writer. In my personal opinion it really is textbook white privilege.’

Jessica was spotted without her wedding ring on her Instagram account, and a source confirmed that she and her husband had split.

Shortly after posting the video, Sasha claimed she was targeted by trolls who sent her death threats.

Jessica made further public apologies but was denied by various television networks, including Good Morning America.

In Canada, the wedding-themed reality show I Do, Redo has been pulled from the schedule.

Ben is the eldest son of Canada’s former prime minister, Brian Mulroney. He is a television presenter and radio presenter.

He also hosted Canadian Idol from 2003 to 2008 and hosted the national morning show Your Morning.

His first date with Jessica didn’t happen until years later when he visited Montreal during a break from Canadian Idol. The two went for sushi and karaoke, and Ben belted out Frank Sinatra’s New York, New York.

“I knew halfway through the date that we would eventually get married,” Ben said.

They married in 2008 at St Patrick’s Basilica in Montreal before honeymooning in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

In 2018, the couple attended Meghan’s wedding to Prince Harry at St George’s Chapel in Windsor.

But a friend told the Daily Mail last July that the former friends had been drifting apart ‘for a while now’.