Meghan Markle says dad, Thomas Markle, lied to her about tabloid stories
Meghan Markle said her outspoken father lied to her about talking to the British press — a “betrayal” that she just can’t “reconcile.”
For the first time, Markle publicly opened up about her strained relationship with her dad, Thomas Markle, who admitted to staging paparazzi photos ahead of the 2018 royal wedding and leaked a personal letter from his daughter to the tabloids.
She said the “betrayal” began when Buckingham Palace learned of a story about her dad set to run days before her nuptials — and he denied speaking to them.
“We called my dad and we asked him, and he said, ‘No, absolutely not,'” Markle told Oprah Winfrey in a segment that aired for the first time Monday. “I said the institution has never intervened in anything for us but they can try to go in and kill this story. But if they do this once, we’re not going to be able to use that same leverage to protect our own kids one day.”
The Duchess of Sussex pleaded with Thomas to just be honest.
“I said, ‘I just need you to tell me, if you tell me the truth, we can help,'” she recalled. “And he wasn’t able to do that, and that for me has really resonated, especially now as a mother.”
Meghan hinted that she’s since struggled to forgive her father, who after the wedding released to the Mail on Sunday a private, five-page letter she wrote about how he broke her heart.
“I look at Archie, I think about this child and I genuinely can’t imagine doing anything to intentionally cause pain to my child,” Meghan, who is pregnant with a girl, told Winfrey. “I can’t imagine it, so it’s hard for me to reconcile that.”
Meghan noted the difference in behavior between her father and her mother, Doria Ragland, whom the tabloids also managed to “hunt” down.
“You’ve never heard her say a word. She remained in silent dignity for four years watching me go through this,” she said.
Meghan, who with Prince Harry sat down with Winfrey for their first in-depth interview since they famously quit the royal family last year, also spoke of her estranged half-sister, Samantha Markle.
Last month, Samantha released the tell-all book “The Diary of Princess Pushy’s Sister Part 1,” slamming her famous sibling for being “belittling” and controlling.
“I think it’d be very hard to tell all when you don’t know me,” Meghan said, adding that she hasn’t seen Samantha in “at least 18, 19 years” and some 10 years before that. “I grew up as an only child. I wish I had siblings.”
“She changed her last name back to Markle, I think she was in her early 50s at that time, only when I started dating Harry, so I think that says enough,” Meghan added.
