Meghan Accused Her Estranged Half-Sister of Lying About Their Relationship—Where They Stand Now
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Setting the record straight. Meghan Markle’s sister was called out by the Duchess of Sussex in the new Netflix documentary Harry & Meghan. Shortly after Meghan went public with Harry, Samantha Markle “was everywhere” speaking about how close they were, but Meghan tells a different story.
Three episodes of the Netflix documentary were released on December 8, 2022, while the last three episodes will be released the following week on December 15, 2022. “It’s really hard to look back on it now and go, ‘What on earth happened?’” Harry said in a voiceover in the trailer. “There’s a hierarchy of the family. You know, there’s leaking, but there’s also planting of stories.” “It’s a dirty game,” he said. “The pain and suffering of women marrying into this institution—this feeding frenzy,” as footage shows his mother Princess Diana and Kate Middleton being followed by paparazzi. Meghan then says, “I realized, they’re never going to protect you.”
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Read below to see who are Meghan Markle’s siblings and their relationships with Meghan now.
Who are Meghan Markle’s siblings?
Who is Meghan Markle’s sister Samantha?
Who is Meghan Markle’s sister Samantha? Samantha Markle Grant is Meghan’s half-sister from her father’s side of the family. According to the Duchess of Sussex, she never really saw her sister while growing up in her father, Thomas Markle’s home, which she moved out of when he and her mother Doria Ragland divorced. Samantha is seventeen years older than Meghan and the former Royal hadn’t seen her “for over a decade” when she was in her 20s and even then, she only saw her for “only a day and a half” at best.
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When news of Meghan’s engagement to Harry broke, Samantha started making headlines for dishing out details about her half-sister. “Suddenly, it felt like she was everywhere,” Meghan recalled in the documentary. “I don’t know your middle name. I don’t know your birthday. You’re telling these people you raised me, and you coined me Princess Pushy?”
An example of Samantha’s involvement in Meghan’s business in the media includes claiming in the past to have “raised” Meghan for 12 years in California, according to the Daily Star. She weighed in on topics like Meghan and Kate Middleton’s alleged feud, with quotes like “[Meghan] could never compare—Kate is iconic! Perfect Queen material and lovely as a family member,” she said, “especially as a mother.” A statement that appeared on the screen said, “Samantha Markle maintains that she and Meghan had a close relationship until 2018 and that the media fabricated quotes that have been attributed to her.”
Samantha said that she was paid by the press for some of her appearances and statements. “I worked in media most of my life and in broadcasting, so because my sister is suddenly royal isn’t grounds for me to stop doing all of that. Let’s face it — we all have to survive. Money makes the world go round, so if you want to call that cashing in, that’s fine, but I think no one in the media would refuse a paycheck for talking about the royal and, as a family, we’re not subject to royal protocol. Why would I stop living because we have a family issue going on?”
In the documentary, Samantha’s biological daughter Ashleigh Hale recalled that her mother had “resentment” towards Meghan when her relationship with Prince Harry progressed, which “seemed to get angrier and bigger.” “After the news [about Harry and Meghan dating] first broke, Samantha [Markle] pretty quickly began expressing a lot of angry words about Meg towards me,” Ashleigh said. “What was communicated to me was maybe some resentment, and it felt like no matter what I said, you know, her perspective didn’t change and seemed to get angrier and bigger.” Meghan exclaimed, “I hadn’t had a fallout with her. We didn’t have a closeness to be able to have that. And I wanted a sister!”
Though Meghan and Samantha didn’t have a familial relationship with each other, Meghan became close with Ashleigh and when they started interacting with each other, they immediately “hit it off.” “It started out with these long emails back and forth to each other and then texts and calls,” Ashleigh said. “After a while, I think we were talking on some level several days a week.” Ashleigh was adopted by her paternal grandparents and also had a rocky relationship with her mother. Ashleigh revealed in the doc that she had not seen Samantha since she was 6 years old before they reconnected in 2007. “We both craved the same thing,” the Archetypes host said. “I wanted a sister, and [Ashleigh] was like a little sister.”
“I think she takes on a lot of roles to me. There’s a sister element, there’s something maternal, she’s a best friend, she’s kinda all the things,” Ashleigh praised her aunt. Though in the doc, Meghan explained the strain that Samantha’s press had on her and Ashleigh’s relationship. Samantha was not invited to the Royal wedding, and it was hard to explain to the press why her daughter was going instead. “I don’t think anyone understands what that very small comms team was dealing with,” Meghan claimed in the Thursday episode. “They just couldn’t wrap their heads around it and I have compassion for it. How do we explain that this half-sister isn’t invited to the wedding, but that the half-sister’s daughter is? And so with Ashleigh, the guidance at the time was to not have her come to our wedding.”
She revealed the heartbreaking correspondence with Ashleigh. “I was in the car with H. I had [Ashleigh] on speakerphone and we talked her through what guidance we were being given and why this assessment was made and that’s painful.” Ashleigh said, ” “I think I said I was hurt on some level, but I understood where it was coming from. To know that it was because of my biological mother that this relationship that’s so important to me was impacted in that way. Because of [Markle] it was taken away — it’s been hard.”
Who is Meghan Markle’s brother Thomas?
Who is Meghan Markle’s brother Thomas? Thomas Markle Jr. is Meghan Markle’s half-brother on her father’s side. He is not mentioned in the first half of Harry and Meghan’s documentary, but he had some history with the press in regard to his half-sister.
Thomas has not seen his sister since 2011, and he was arrested in 2017 for holding a gun to his now-fiancée’s head during a drunken incident, for which the charges were eventually dropped. He vented his frustrations about not being invited to the Royal wedding, calling Meghan a “phony, and wanting to call the wedding off in a handwritten letter sent to InTouch Weekly. “Meg, I am very proud of you. I truly want you to have a great wedding day and long future with Prince Harry,” he wrote. “I’m sorry for venting my frustrations about [how] he should call it off, but I was disappointed and confused about not getting invited. I really only wish you the best. I remember a loving, caring, amazing girl who had a great family growing up and I know you’re still that person inside. So whatever you decide is ok with me, maybe I’ll see you there, with all of us. “It can still be a royal wedding family reunion.” Once again, congrats to you and Prince Harry. I’m very proud of you and wish you the best. Love, Tom Jr.”
Spare by Prince Harry
Buy: ‘Spare’ by Prince Harry $23.12
For more about Prince Harry, read his upcoming memoir, Spare. Told for the first time in his own words, the book takes readers through the Duke of Sussex’s life with the British royal family, from the death of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997 to how the moment led to his decision decades later to move to America with his wife, Meghan Markle, and leave Buckingham Palace for good in 2020. “With its raw, unflinching honesty, Spare is a landmark publication full of insight, revelation, self-examination, and hard-won wisdom about the eternal power of love over grief,” the publisher’s description reads.
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