When Meghan Markle first married Prince Harry, many wondered whether this American actor would be able to find acceptance within the Royal Family. Given her and her husband’s abrupt “Megxit,” in which they stepped back from most royal responsibilities and fled England altogether, it seems like the answer to that question is a resounding “no.” Ironically, though, Meghan’s marriage to Harry has brought to light the biggest thing she has in common with other royals: having embarrassing family members constantly trying to plot her downfall.
And we’re not talking about royalty here: while Meghan has more than a few enemies with royal blood (which, if rumors are true, has included Prince William and Kate Middleton), her biggest enemies are her father and half-sister, the latter of whom is now suing Meghan for defamation.
Just when it looked like things couldn’t get messier, sister Samantha now wants to drag her estranged daughter into the lawsuit. What’s going on with this nasty family drama, and how has Meghan’s Netflix series made things worse? Keep reading to find out!
Who is Samantha Markle?
Who is Samantha Markle? The short answer is that she is what you get when someone wants more than 15 minutes of fame and is demanding to speak to the manager about it.
The longer answer is that Samantha is Meghan’s half-sister and a full 17 years older than the Duchess of Sussex. Samantha and Meghan weren’t close growing up, and even Samantha’s mother is quick to point out how jealous Samantha always was of her younger half-sister. As Yahoo! reports, mother Roslyn said that Samantha “has dogged on Meghan forever” and that “she’s never liked Meghan and she’s always been jealous of her.”
Since Meghan became a household name, Samantha has done her best to capitalize on her little sister’s fame, going so far as to write a fairly desperate book: The Diary of Princess Pushy’s Sister Part 1. But after Meghan and Harry gave their infamous Oprah interview, sister grifter decided it was time to take Meghan to court.
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The original lawsuit
While the Netflix series Harry & Meghan recently made things worse (more on this soon), Samantha Markle first decided to sue her famous sister in 2022 in response to Harry and Meghan’s 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey. As CNN reports, Samantha is suing her sister for “defamation and injurious falsehood” because the younger woman made “demonstrably false and malicious statements….to a worldwide audience.”
Samantha is seeking damages exceeding $75,000, but what would be worth all this money? The actual defamation part seems to focus on when Meghan claimed that she basically grew up as “an only child,” something Samantha felt was insulting to their father, Thomas Markle.
If that’s not salacious enough, the suit also claims that Meghan engaged in “a premeditated campaign” that set out to “defame and destroy her sister’s and her father’s reputation and credibility in order to preserve and promote the false ‘rags-to-royalty’ narrative.”
Thomas Markle gets involved
As you might imagine, a major ally of Samantha in this struggle is Thomas Markle, himself someone trying to ride his connection to Meghan as far as he can. As Newsweek reports, he recently told his Youtube channel that, “I’ve been trying for almost four years to get to see my daughter and her ginger husband in a courtroom face-to-face.” He claims that not only has he not seen them, but “I haven’t seen my grandchildren. I’d be thrilled to come to court and talk and defend my oldest daughter [Samantha].”
From Meghan’s wedding to the present day, Thomas has seemed very dedicated to embarrassing his younger daughter in the public eye. Now, this one-man drama bomb is hoping to go off in court, preferably with as many cameras on him as possible.
RELATED: Meghan Markle’s Father Is Working On A Documentary About Their Family
How ‘Harry & Meghan’ made things worse
Before the debut of the Harry & Meghan Netflix show, Meghan was working quietly behind the scenes to defuse this explosive lawsuit. For example, she tried and failed to stop her sister from deposing people for the case. Now, Harry and Meghan have been deposed, and it looks like a casual statement made by Meghan on her Netflix series is going to result in her niece being deposed as well.
One episode of the streaming docu-series features Samantha Markle’s daughter, Ashleigh Hale. Meghan spoke about how they were secretly close when growing up, and as Newsweek reports, Hale had little positive to say about Samantha. She basically dished about how her grandparents raised her instead of Samantha before then pivoting to how much she loves Meghan. “There is a sister element, there’s a maternal… she’s my friend… she’s kind of all the things.” She went on to describe how much Samantha grew to resent her and how they eventually stopped talking because there are “some people you can’t reason with.”
Predictably, Samantha Markle believes this to be a lie, and she now wants to depose her estranged daughter as part of the defamation suit. She also plans to depose Thomas Markle, who seems like he is downright spoiling for some kind of court battle.
For all of this drama, there is still a chance the case will get thrown out. Meghan has asked the judge to do just that, and he hasn’t yet rendered a decision. But given Meghan’s bad luck with this case so far and that Meghan has been demonstrably stonewalling her sister during the discovery phase of the case, this fractured family may finally have it out in court on the scheduled date of October 2.