Duchess of Sussex sued by half-sister over ‘malicious lies’ in Oprah Winfrey interview

The Duchess of Sussex is being sued for defamation by her half-sister, who accused her of telling “false and malicious lies” about her fairytale “rags-to-royalty” upbringing at her paternal family’s expense.

Samantha Markle, who is the daughter of Thomas Markle, the Duchess’s father, is seeking $75,000 (£57,000) in damages over the Sussexes’ Oprah Winfrey interview and Finding Freedom biography that she claimed subjected her to “humiliation, shame and hatred on a worldwide scale”.

In papers submitted to a court in Florida, Ms Markle accused the Duchess of concocting a “false narrative and fairytale life story”, as well as orchestrating a “campaign 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”.

A lawyer representing the Duchess called the lawsuit “baseless and absurd”, and a “continuation of a pattern of disturbing behaviour”.

Michael Kump, from the Kinsella Weitzman Iser Kump Holley law firm, added: “We will give it the minimum attention necessary, which is all it deserves.”

Duchess ‘used powerful resources to spread lies’

Ms Markle has made numerous television and press appearances to speak about her half-sister, and has attempted to publish a book outlining her side of their relationship.

The Duchess has moved to distance herself, pointedly calling Ms Markle “your other daughter” in a letter to her father, which itself became the subject of a legal case.

Ms Markle, who has previously also been known by the surname Grant, accused the Duchess of “defamation based on demonstrably false and malicious statements” during the Mar 2021 Oprah Winfrey interview to “a worldwide audience, including roughly 50 million people in 17 countries”, and to the authors of Finding Freedom.

The Duchess, she claimed, “used the powerful resources of the Royal family’s public relations operation to disseminate and spread lies worldwide” about Ms Markle and her father “in a premeditated campaign to destroy their reputation and credibility so they could not interfere with, or contradict, the false narrative and fairytale life story concocted by the Defendant”.

Ms Markle listed numerous examples of what she says are “false and malicious” statements by the Duchess, including that she was “an only child”, that she barely saw her half-sister, and that she changed her surname to Markle only to cash in on the Duchess’s relationship with the Duke of Sussex.

She cited an email written by the Duchess to Jason Knauf, her press secretary at the time, made public in UK court paperwork earlier this year, providing briefing notes for him to share with Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand, the authors of Finding Freedom.

Duchess’s upbringing story disputed

The notes included details of her distant relationship with Ms Markle, whom the Duchess said dropped out of high school and “lost custody of all three of her children from different fathers”.

The briefing, Ms Markle now said, amounted to suggesting that she “is promiscuous and a bad mother”.

“[The Duchess] orchestrated the campaign 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 [the Duchess] had fabricated about her life to the Royal family and the worldwide media,” her lawyers said in court papers.

Ms Markle took particular issue with the Duchess’s claims – included in a letter to Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the US House of Representatives, for the paid leave campaign, and in television appearances in Oprah and Ellen – that she “essentially raised herself from virtual poverty” and “was forced from the age of 13 to work in a series of low-paying jobs to ‘make ends meet’.”

She included the specific claims that she drove an old car with malfunctioning doors, necessitating her climbing in and out of the boot, and that her family “could only afford the $4.99 salad bar at Sizzlers”.

“In truth, Defendant’s Father, Thomas Markle, was a highly successful television lighting director for 45 years,” said Ms Markle’s claim.

The young Meghan Markle, she said, “attended elite and expensive private schools, and dance and acting classes in Los Angeles paid for by her father”, as well as her college education “including tuition, rent and living expenses”.

After the Duchess graduated, papers claimed, Mr Markle paid for her apartment and other expenses “until she could afford to take care of herself” and arranged for her speaking part on General Hospital, the US soap opera, so she could apply for a union card.

The court papers said: “Defendant drove a perfectly operational Ford Explorer with functioning doors. Mr Markle regularly took Defendant to the finest and most expensive restaurants in Los Angeles.

“Mr Markle’s six-figure salary at ABC Television afforded Defendant an upper-middle class lifestyle, although it may now seem like a pittance to a ‘Duchess’ living in a $21 million Santa Barbara mansion with neighbors [sic.] like Oprah Winfrey, Ellen DeGeneres, Rob Lowe and Ariana Grande.”

Ms Markle claimed that the Duchess’s statements and briefing note about her led to her receiving “hateful emails and messages on a regular basis”, with one injunction against a stalker from “one of the defendant’s zealous fans”.

Her reputation is “so damaged that she has been unable to work in her chosen profession”, she claimed.

“Plaintiff has suffered actual damages in the form of lost employment, lost income from sales of her autobiography, emotional and mental distress, including anxiety and fear due to the threatening and violent emails and messages she receives regularly, and harm to her reputation and credibility,” papers filed on Thursday stated.