Meghan Markle denies she lied during Oprah Winfrey interview about her childhood

Meghan Markle has denied that she lied about her childhood during her and Prince Harry's tell-all interview with their Californian neighbour, TV host Oprah Winfrey, as part of a legal suit against her half-sister, Samantha Markle. Samantha is suing the Duchess of Sussex in a defamation case, and has honed in on Meghan saying during the prime-time programme that she "grew up as an only child".

The Duchess' half-sister is hoping to win £57,000 worth of damages following Meghan's comments and the notorious 'unofficial' royal biography, Finding Freedom, by Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand, that Samantha is claiming subjected her to "humiliation, shame and hatred on a worldwide scale". However, both authors have previously denied that the Sussexes had any direct involvement (something royal fans have contested).

Now, Meghan's lawyers have responded by saying her comments about growing up without siblings were clearly subjective, not factual (and therefore defamatory), noting her words to be a "textbook example of a subjective statement about how a person feels about her childhood".

Her legal team also said in the paperwork: "Plaintiff [Samantha] asserts that she can disprove that Meghan 'grew up as an only child' but this perception is inherently unfalsifiable. It is hard to imagine a more personal and subjective feeling than how one views their own childhood.

"Moreover, Plaintiff's opposition completely ignores the context of the statement, where Ms Winfrey asked Meghan about her 'relationship' with Plaintiff (to whom Ms Winfrey referred as her 'half-sister on her father's side'). Meghan’s response to that question that she 'grew up as an only child' was obviously not meant to be a statement of objective fact that she had no genetic siblings or half-siblings.

"Rather, it was a textbook example of a subjective statement about how a person feels about her childhood."

Her team are also putting forth an argument that says Meghan can't be sued for anything in relation to Finding Freedom, as she didn't write it (however Samantha is pushing the narrative that Meghan could have spoken with the authors off-record and is therefore also liable).

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