Meghan Markle’s estranged half-sister has launched another blistering attack on the Duchess of Sussex by claiming that her marriage to Prince Harry will end in divorce unless they get ‘extensive counselling’.
In an extraordinary intervention, Samantha Markle suggested the Duke may already be ‘questioning’ the marriage and predicted it could ‘get nasty’ until he ‘starts dissenting or pulling back from her’.
The 56-year-old American also called on the Sussexes to go on an ‘apology tour’ after the couple made accusations of racism within the Royal Family during their bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey.
Samantha, who has accused Meghan of having ‘narcissistic personality disorder’, also claimed that she ‘did a lot of damage’ to their father Thomas Markle and called on her half-sister to make a public apology to him.
Speaking to TMZ about Meghan and Harry’s marriage, she said: ‘I see it ending in divorce unless they get extensive counselling and can agree to work on being honest, to work on apologies to everyone that they’ve damaged in the course of this bull in a china shop two-year spiel.
‘I mean, nothing about any of this has been honest, and the damage to the Royals has been massive – especially now.’
She said of Harry: ‘Maybe he’s already questioning it, he has to be if he has a functioning frontal lobe. Come on, he’s not 12.
Meghan Markle’s estranged half-sister has launched another blistering attack on the Duchess of Sussex by claiming that her marriage to Prince Harry will end in divorce unless they get ‘extensive counselling’
In an extraordinary intervention, Samantha Markle suggested the Duke may already be ‘questioning’ the marriage and predicted it could ‘get nasty’ until he ‘starts dissenting or pulling back from her’
Thomas Markle had his say on Meghan and Harry’s Oprah interview to defend himself and the Royal Family, who he says are not racist, before laying into Harry claiming he had failed to properly support his daughter
‘What man would be happy or comfortable like that? And the minute I believe he starts dissenting or pulling back from her, I think it can get nasty unless he has a really good lawyer or they have really good counsellors.
‘I don’t know what it’s gonna take.’
When asked what would need to happen for Meghan and her father to ‘restore their relationship’, Samantha said: ‘She would have to apologise – a public apology, god, I know would be like getting blood from a rock but she did a lot of public damage.
‘Really, I mean I really feel like this thing was all orchestrated that she needs to unravel the damage.
‘She did a lot of damage to a man who gave her an incredible life – so hurtful, so wrong. She would need to make the first move and, I mean, you know, parents are always unconditionally loving but god, she really hurt him.’
MailOnline has contacted representatives for the Sussexes for comment.
The startling allegations come as:
- Meghan Markle was ‘America’s princess’ but was deemed ‘not good enough’ for the Royal Family, Trisha Goddard has claimed;
- Harry and Meghan’s ‘garden wedding’ was no more than a ‘private conversation’ with the Archbishop of Canterbury, a vicar who investigated the matter said;
- Donald Trump has not spoken publicly about Harry and Meghan’s interview because he doesn’t want to be ‘canceled’ like Piers Morgan, his ex-aide claims;
- The father of an Army officer who Prince Harry notoriously called a ‘P***’ insists his claims of racism in the Royal Family are ‘wrong’;
- Prince Philip, 99, is set to spend his fourth week recovering in hospital after undergoing heart surgery;
- The Queen, 94, will go ahead with planned engagements this week to continue the ‘business as usual’ approach taken since the Duke and Duchess of Sussex gave their bombshell interview to Oprah Winfrey;
- Meghan’s friend Janina Gavankar joined the fightback by alleging that one of the PAs had been fired for ‘gross misconduct’ and did not leave because of bullying;
- It emerged in a former post on Meghan’s blog The Tig that she knew all about the ‘pomp and circumstance surrounding the Royal Wedding and endless conversation about Princess Kate’ – seeming to contradict her claim that she had little knowledge of the Royal Family before she met Harry;
- The Palace said issues of race that emerged in Harry and Meghan’s interview would be taken seriously and addressed privately.
Harry accused an unnamed member of his family of racism and said the lack of support he and his wife received from the other royals was behind their decision to quit the UK
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s popularity ratings have fallen to its lowest level ever after their bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey, according to a new poll
Samantha previously claimed ‘the truth was totally ignored and omitted’ while providing photos and documents to disprove each of Meghan’s claims about her.
The 56-year-old also admitted that she has no sympathy for Meghan, 39, who revealed during the shocking interview that she battled suicidal thoughts during her time as a royal – instead accusing the Duchess of using her ‘depression as an excuse for treating people like dishrags’.
In her explosive CBS interview, Meghan told Oprah that Samantha ‘doesn’t know’ her, claiming she was raised as ‘an only child’ – but her half-sister hit back by insisting that could not be further from the truth.
‘I don’t know how she can say I don’t know her and she was an only child. We’ve got photographs over a lifespan of us together. So how can she not know me?’ she told Inside Edition, while sharing images of the two women together at different stages throughout their lives – most recently in 2008.
When Oprah had asked Meghan about Samantha’s tell-all book, The Diary of Princess Pushy’s Sister, the Duchess retorted: ‘I think it would be very hard to tell all when you don’t know me.’
Meghan added that she had grown up ‘an only child’ and claimed she hadn’t seen her half-sister in nearly two decades.
However, Samantha provided photos that show them together throughout the years, including one of them at her college graduation in 2008.
The Duchess also claimed that Samantha only changed her surname back to Markle after Meghan struck up a romance with Harry – suggesting that her half-sister was trying to capitalise on the public interest in her name.
‘She changed her last name back to Markle… only when I started dating Harry. So I think that says enough,’ she said.
But Samantha insisted that this claim was wholly inaccurate, and shared further evidence to refute it.
‘I was a Markle before she was,’ she said. ‘I though that was kind of weird that she would say I only changed my name back when she met Harry. Markle has always been my name.’
Samantha then showed Inside Edition her petition to change her name that was dated back to December 1997 and her college diploma, which says Samantha M Markle.
When asked about her half-sister’s revelation that she struggled with suicidal thoughts, Samantha said that she had little sympathy for her, and actually accused Meghan of using her mental health an ‘an excuse’ for treating people ‘like dishrags’.
‘Depression is not an excuse for treating people like dishrags and disposing of them,’ she said.
The tension between the Markles was addressed in unaired sections of the Sussexes CBS sit-down with Oprah, who probed about her relationship with Thomas.
Thomas was supposed to walk Meghan down the aisle in May 2018 but pulled out of the ceremony following health problems.
Last week, Meghan’s estranged father Thomas denied his daughter’s claims to Oprah that he had ‘betrayed’ her before branding Harry ‘snotty’ and accusing him of failing to properly support her when she was suicidal.
Thomas said he has apologised ‘100 times’ for doing a deal with a paparazzi photographer before the Royal Wedding in 2018 and urged the couple to see him with Archie now they only live ’70 miles away’ from his Mexico home.
He said: ‘We all make mistakes – but I’ve never played naked pool or dressed like Hitler like Harry did’.
And in a further attack on Harry, Thomas said that his daughter’s admission she was suicidal while living in the UK reflected badly on his son-on-law.
He said: ‘It really did upset me, like I said, it would have been easy for her to reach out to me, any of the rest of her family, who she claims she doesn’t know. But the other thing is that I would think that she could turn to her husband.’ When noted she did speak to Harry, Mr Markle said Meghan’s husband Harry had ‘obviously not supported her that well’.
Mr Markle than slammed his daughter’s decision to refuse to see or speak to him, Mr Markle said: ‘The biggest problem here is she’s pretty much ghosted all of her family’.
The 76-year-old also denied the Royal Family – or Britain – is racist, saying if it is true an unnamed royal asked about how ‘dark’ Archie’s skin would be, it was probably just a ‘dumb question’, before calling Meghan and Harry’s claims ‘bulls**t’.
Thomas, who has watched the entire two-hour CBS interview, said he was ‘upset’ when he saw his youngest daughter tell Oprah that royal life was so stressful she was suicidal and ‘couldn’t be left alone’ – but then said Meghan’s husband Harry had ‘obviously not supported her that well’.
He spoke to Good Morning Britain in the UK after watching the Oprah interview with his daughter and her husband, which was watched by 11.1million in Britain and tens of millions more when it was shown by CBS in the US.
In it Meghan said she could not fathom hurting her son Archie in the way her own father ‘betrayed’ her, admitting she ‘found it hard to reconcile’ with Thomas.
She said: ‘I look at Archie, I think about this child, and I genuinely can’t imagine doing anything to intentionally cause pain to my child’.
Mr Markle said that while he did let her down, she had ‘let me down too’ by cutting him off after heart surgery almost three years ago.
He said: ‘The bottom line is she didn’t lose me, she made a statement saying she lost me, she didn’t lose me, I would’ve always been there for her, I’m there for her now if she wants me’. He added: ‘We all make mistakes – but I’ve never played naked pool or dressed like Hitler like Harry did’.
Mr Markle was referencing Harry’s decision to wear a Nazi uniform to a party when he was 20 and seven years later in 2012 the prince was photographed wearing nothing but a necklace with a naked female playmate hiding behind him having just played a game of strip pool in his VIP Las Vegas hotel suite.
The Queen and Prince Charles attending the 2019 Braemar Highland Games
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge gesture during a visit to School21 following its re-opening after the easing of lockdown restrictions in east London on March 11, 2021
Prince Harry reveals he arranged for flowers to be placed on Princess Diana’s grave in poignant Mother’s Day tribute – after Cambridges released George and Charlotte’s cards to ‘Granny Diana’
The Princess of Wales is pictured with her sons in 1995, two years before her death
Prince Harry arranged for flowers to be placed on Princess Diana’s grave as a poignant tribute on Mother’s Day.
Prince William and Kate Middleton shared home-made cards from Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis, addressed to their ‘Granny Diana’.
A week after Harry joined wife Meghan Markle in a bombshell inteview with Oprah Winfrey, it was revealed he had arranged his own tribute to his mother, who died in 1997.
Princess Diana was buried on a private island within the grounds of her family’s home in Althorp Park.
Flowers were laid at the site on behalf of Prince Harry, who now lives in the US and was just 12 when his mother died.
Diana’s brother, Lord Spencer, decided she should be buried on an island within the grounds of the stately home, stating it would: ‘Act as a buffer against the interventions of the insane and ghoulish, the thick mud presenting a further line of defence.
‘We all agreed that, with its beauty and tranquility, this was the place for Diana to be.’
Describing his last phone call with Harry after heart surgery in May 2018, Mr Markle said: ‘Harry had said to me if you had listened to me, this wouldn’t have happened to you. Me, laying in a hospital bed after a having procedure, I had a stent put here and put here [points at his heart] and that was kind of snotty so I hung up on him.’
But Mr Markle also used the rare interview to urge his daughter to reach out to him. He said: ‘I’d like to say again. I’m sorry for what I’ve done.
‘This was two years ago. But I’ve tried to make it up to her. I’m now only 70 miles away. I’ve never stopped loving her. I don’t agree with all the things that my children they do. But I will always love them. And I certainly love Meghan’.
It comes as the Queen and Prince Charles last week backed Prince William after he insisted the royals were ‘very much not a racist family’.
William on Thursday became the first senior Windsor to address directly the string of allegations made by Harry and Meghan in their explosive Oprah interview.
Buckingham Palace and Clarence House, the official homes of the Queen and the Prince of Wales, were both said to be supportive of William’s solo intervention.
The prince was speaking as he and his wife Kate visited a school in east London to support a youth mental health support service.
Aides had initially insisted the couple would not answer questions about the interview because it would ‘not be appropriate’ in a school setting.
His firm rebuttal came after Buckingham Palace issued a statement on Tuesday on behalf of the Queen expressing the family’s sadness at learning the ‘full extent of how challenging the last few years have been for Harry and Meghan’.
The statement said the issues they raised, particularly that of race, were very ‘concerning’. But it made clear that the Queen and other senior royals were keen to stand their ground, adding: ‘While some recollections may vary, they are taken very seriously and will be addressed by the family privately.’
Harry and Meghan raised claims of racism within the Royal Family during the Oprah interview.
They claimed they had experienced open racism from family members and staff, and alleged a member of Harry’s family even expressed ‘concern’ about ‘how dark’ their unborn son would be.
They also said the family had been uniquely unsupportive of the pressures they were going through, leaving Meghan feeling suicidal and fuelling their decision to quit the UK.
Harry said he felt let down by his father, who, he claimed, refused to take his calls at one point, and admitted there was still a gulf between him and his brother.
Their accusations have left the Royal Family reeling and prompted a huge debate about the racism both within the monarchy and the UK more generally.
The fact that William was asked about the row on an official engagement shows what unprecedented territory the Royal Family has found itself in.
Buckingham Palace has seen its every word and action under scrutiny, with the claims prompting debate about the future of the monarchy in Commonwealth realms such as Australia, where the Queen is still head of state.
Harry’s ‘hypocrisy’: Prince is branded ’embarrassing’ over his interview on the same US TV network that showed photo of Princess Diana dying
By SAME GREENHILL, CHIEF REPORTER FOR THE DAILY MAIL
The Duke of Sussex was accused of ’embarrassing’ hypocrisy yesterday for granting his interview to CBS – the same American network that caused outrage by showing a photograph of his mother dying.
In 2004 CBS was condemned when it became the first broadcaster or publisher to show the ‘distasteful’ photo of Princess Diana taken moments after the 1997 car crash in Paris in which she died.
When the same photo later appeared in an Italian magazine, Prince William and Prince Harry issued a rare statement condemning it, saying they were ‘deeply saddened that such a low has been reached’.
The Duke of Sussex was accused of ’embarrassing’ hypocrisy yesterday for granting his interview to CBS
But Harry allowed CBS to make millions with the Sussexes’ Oprah Winfrey interview that was broadcast on March 7.
When the network broadcast the photograph of Diana, her brother Earl Spencer said he was ‘shocked and sickened by CBS’s actions’.
The broadcaster was unrepentant, saying the photo was ‘not gory’. No British publication has ever published it.
Royal biographer Hugo Vickers said: ‘It is quite embarrassing for Prince Harry. How could he possibly co-operate with an organisation which some years ago was the only outlet to publish a deeply distressing photo of his mother’s dying moment?
Royal biographer Hugo Vickers (pictured) said: ‘It is quite embarrassing for Prince Harry. How could he possibly co-operate with an organisation which some years ago was the only outlet to publish a deeply distressing photo of his mother’s dying moment?
‘It is pretty hypocritical of him. I suppose he didn’t remember, or maybe he had no choice because of contracts signed? If he was still being advised by the Palace, they would have spotted this sort of thing a mile off.’
Former Buckingham Palace press secretary Dickie Arbiter said: ‘The problem with American networks is that they are all about ratings, and advertising and bringing in money. It is not about decency.
‘In 2004 it was publishing a photograph which was in incredibly bad taste. In 2021 it is running a two-hour interview with Meghan and Harry. Both will have made it a lot of money.’
It came as a friend of Prince Charles also accused Harry of ‘hypocrisy’ as he disputed the duke’s claim in the interview that his father had ‘cut him off’ financially.
The friend said Charles had continued to support the Sussexes after their move to the US.
The friend told the Sunday Times: ‘What ****ing hypocrisy. When Harry and Meghan left last year, they wanted to become ‘financially independent’.’
In 2004 CBS was condemned by then prime minister Tony Blair, who said: ‘I think everyone finds it distasteful that there are pictures that can cause distress to the family.’
The CBS programme, 48 Hours Investigates, showed the picture as part of a report called Diana’s Secrets.
It was accompanied by a voice-over from French doctor Frederic Mailliez, who arrived at the crash scene in Paris and gave emergency first aid to the princess.
He told viewers that Diana ‘still looked beautiful’ as he tried to save her life.
At the time, CBS said the picture was one of several seized from French photographers which formed part of the official investigation into the crash on August 31, 1997. ‘It is not gory in any way, shape or form,’ said CBS.
When the photo was published on the cover of Milan-based Chi magazine in 2006, the princes’ outcry was echoed by Diana’s former equerry and private secretary, Patrick Jephson, who said: ‘I feel sickened and very sad.’