ROYALSMeghan Markle Credits Demise Of Relationship With Dad Thomas To The Media: 'It Was Incredibly Painful'
Meghan Markle is getting honest about the fallout with her dad, Thomas Markle, in a whole new way in her Netflix docuseries, Harry & Meghan.
The father-daughter duo's estranged relationship has been grabbing headlines for years, and now, the Duchess of Sussex is spilling where it all went wrong between the two and what was to ultimately blame for tearing their family apart.
When asked if she was close with her dad most of her life, Meghan replied: "Yeah," with a smile. "I mean, you know, it's family. So it's never easy, never perfect. But of course, I talked to my dad several times a week and, you know…"
Despite their tight-knit relationship growing up, the demise of their relationship played out in the press over the five years. Addressing what was to blame for "things" going "awry" between the two, Meghan said, "When the media got involved."
A clip of a previous interview Thomas did then began playing, with parts of stories from his public statements about his daughter being shown on screen.
"After the wedding, my dad started doing interviews, mostly saying things about me," recalled Meghan of what happened after her May 2018 nuptials. "It was incredibly painful."
"And the world is watching this drama play out," continued Meghan. "And then he started criticizing the royal family But it was very embarrassing for the royal family." (Thomas likened the royals to a "secretive Scientology cult" in one controversial interview.)
The mother-of-two — who has been at odds with her father since he collaborated with the paparazzi to shoot a series of staged photographs before his daughter's royal wedding in 2018 — then said, "It was a problem that needed to be solved, and they wanted me to make it stop."
Meghan revealed she reached out to Her Majesty, the late Queen Elizabeth II, to tell her about what was going on in the papers, asking her, "What do you want me to do?"
"But ultimately, it was suggested by the Queen, the Prince of Wales [Prince William], that I write my dad a letter," she revealed, referring to the infamous letter that got leaked. "I had gone to great lengths to get that letter to my dad discreetly, because I can't put this letter in the mail with the return address being Kensington Palace and send it to Tom Markle and assume it's going to get there."
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As for her plan, Meghan explained she sent the letter to her business manager in L.A., who would then send it to Thomas, and received the signature proving it had been delivered — but it wasn't her dad's signature that she saw.
The letter was instantly splashed on the front page of every news outlet imaginable. "It was horrendous," she recalled of the stories that came out about the letter afterwards.
While Harry and Meghan questioned why a tabloid would publish a private letter between a daughter and father knowing the repercussions being a possible lawsuit, the red-headed prince pointed out the U.K. outlet that published the entire letter knew the royal family would not sue.
However, taking matters into their own hands, the couple sued the publication for privacy invasion. Meghan's three-year court battle with the outlet came to an end in December 2021.
