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Meghan Markle says she was ‘betrayed’ and ‘hurt’ by her father

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Updated on June 15, 2023

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The Duchess of Sussex has stated that she cannot imagine hurting Archie in the same manner that her own father ‘betrayed’ her prior to the royal wedding.

During her and Prince Harry’s wide-ranging interview with Oprah Winfrey, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex spoke out openly for the first time regarding her father and half-sister.

Meghan’s husband, Prince Harry, and his grandson, Archie, have never met Thomas. When it was revealed that the retired lighting director had staged paparazzi pictures ahead of the royal wedding, the father-daughter duo fell out.

Meghan says she’s ‘found it hard to reconcile’ with Thomas Markle for insisting he hadn’t been speaking to the media in recently published video from the Oprah interview.

‘I look at Archie, I think about this child, and I genuinely can’t imagine doing anything to intentionally cause pain to my child,’ she added.

“There was such an obsession about anything in my world, including tracking down my parents. And I did everything I could to protect both of them in that media frenzy,” she said. “But for over a year, the U.K. tabloids were trying to find my dad, offering people so much money to try to find his address. Once they did, I remember being told there was a huge headline like, ‘We found him’ or ‘We’ve got him.’ You’re talking about someone’s father. And from that point, the tabloids, they moved into the apartment next door and across from him. Descended on this small town, which is giving him gifts. The whole thing brings us to where we are today.”

When questioned whether she felt “betrayed” by her father’s “working with the tabloids,” during the CBS Primetime Special, the Duchess claimed Thomas had refuted it all. “When I asked him, he said, ‘No, absolutely not [that he hadn’t been talking to the tabloids],'” Meghan revealed.

Thomas couldn’t say he was telling the truth as she pressed him harder, claiming she and Harry had promised to “kill” the news report if he was telling the truth.

“I said, I just need you to tell me and if you tell me the truth we can help. And he wasn’t able to do that,” said Meghan.

“If we were going to use the word betrayal, it’s because when I asked him, when we were told by the comms team, this is a story that was going to be coming out, which, by the way, the tabloids had apparently known for a month or so and decided to hold until the Sunday before our wedding because they wanted to create drama, which is also a really key point in all this,” she added.

The tabloids do not report news, she said, “they create the news.”

Meghan made a point of praising her mother, Doria Ragland, for staying “in silent dignity for four years.”

The duchess said that “everyone has accountability” in the case, noting that her mother, Doria Ragland, was also “hunted” by the news.

Ragland, unlike her father had not talked to the media.

Meghan has distanced herself from Samantha Markle, her half-sister, who has written a ‘tell-all’ book about their relationship.

‘I think it would be very hard to tell all when you don’t know me,’ the Duchess retorted.

She said she grew up as a “only child” and that Samantha only changed her surname back to Markle after Meghan and Harry began dating.

Samantha’s autobiography, dubbed ‘The Diary of Princess Pushy’s Sister: A Memoir, Part One,’ describes their upbringing in great detail.

‘I don’t feel comfortable talking about people that I really don’t know. But I grew up as an only child, which everybody who grew up around me knows .’

She went on to say that she wishes she had siblings and that she was happy Archie would have a younger sister.
Meghan said she last saw Samantha almost 20 years ago.

CBS This Morning broadcast a new, previously unseen clip from the Oprah interview as a follow-up. Oprah was asked whether she knew whether Meghan was open to rebuilding a relationship with her father by presenters Gayle King, Anthony Mason, and Tony Dokoupil.

“Her relationship with her father is similar to what’s happening between Harry and William,” Oprah said. “There’s distance there, maybe with time it’ll get better, but for now, no.”

Thomas was scheduled to lead Meghan down the aisle in May 2018, but he had to back out due to health issues.