Meghan Markle’s estranged sister has begged her to stop ‘watching and doing nothing’ after their father was rushed for emergency treatment after he suffered a stroke.
Samantha Markle, 57, compared her sibling’s lack of action to ‘elder abuse’ after she was accused of failing to contact her since news first broke of Thomas Markle’s ailing heath earlier this week.
Retired lighting director Mr Markle, 77, who lives in Rosarito, Mexico, was struck down and lost his speech only a week before he had been due to fly to London for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations.
It is not yet known whether Meghan, 40, who is estranged from him, will go to his bedside at a clinic in Chula Vista, California – only a few hours’ drive from the home she shares with Prince Harry in Montecito.
But speaking to GB News’s Dan Wootton Tonight, Samantha Markle became emotional as she spoke of Meghan’s ‘negligence’ and accused her of failing to contact the family following her father’s stroke.
‘He’s been through so much,’ she explained. ‘Two heart attacks, a pandemic and now a stroke. None of us have heard from Meghan – that’s negligence.
‘If she can’t find it in her heart or have the moral conscience to step forward then shame on her. He doesn’t have a lot of time. She’s going to have to live with that for the rest of her life’. Ms Markle was contacted for comment.
Speaking to GB News’s Dan Wootton Tonight, Samantha Markle (right) became emotional as she spoke of Meghan’s ‘negligence’ and accused her of failing to contact the family following her father’s stroke
Samantha Markle, 57, compared her sibling’s lack of action to ‘elder abuse’ after she was accused of doing nothing when news broke of Thomas Markle’s ailing heath earlier this week. They are pictured together above in 2008
Thomas Markle had revealed to MailOnline’s Dan Wootton on GB News last month that he wanted to visit Britain for the Jubilee
It is not known whether Meghan, who is estranged from her father Thomas Markle (together), is planning to go to his bedside
When asked by Dan if she felt Meghan should offer to help with the medical costs moving forward, Samantha said: ‘She sees all of this. I’m getting the feeling that I would be spinning my wheels to try and appeal to her heart now.
‘She could have contacted him to work things out at any time and she hasn’t. How can she watch him suffer like this? Who does that?’
Mr Markle’s blood pressure had been high in the preceding days, it was said. It means that Mr Markle will miss the celebrations in London just as he missed Meghan’s wedding to Harry in 2018 after suffering a heart attack.
Mr Markle, who lives in Rosarito, Mexico, was taken by ambulance across the border to the US at around 9.30pm on Monday.
His son Thomas Jr, 55, was with him and is at the hospital near San Diego, while Samantha was last night said to be flying in from her home in Florida.
In the footage posted online, Mr Markle is seen lying on a stretcher wearing an oxygen mask.
Two paramedics try to lift him while speaking in Spanish and ask him what his name is. Somebody behind the camera responds that his name is Thomas.
Speaking in English, one of the paramedics says: ‘I’m going to be your paramedic. You’re going to the US.’
Mr Markle was due in London next week and was to have been a guest on TV during coverage of the jubilee celebrations. The trip would have fulfilled his ‘long-held wish to visit Windsor Castle’, MailOnline’s Dan Wootton wrote.
His health, however, seems certain to have dashed that hope, just as it scuppered Mr Markle’s plans to walk Meghan down the aisle in 2018 when he was forced to pull out of the ceremony.
He underwent surgery to repair the damage and Prince Charles stood in for him, performing the father of the bride’s duties during the wedding service.
A young Meghan Markle is pictured with her father Thomas Markle, a retired lighting director who lives in Mexico
Meghan Markle and husband Prince Harry after his polo victory at the Santa Barbara Polo and Racquet Club on Sunday
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex at Westminster Abbey in London on March 9, 2020 – before stepping down as senior royals
Mr Markle has endured a difficult relationship with Meghan and her husband Prince Harry – whom he has previously accused of being ‘snotty’.
He and his youngest daughter have not spoken since before the wedding, when they were texting while he lay in bed at the hospital, he has claimed.
According to Mr Markle, at that point they ‘pretty much said goodbye’ and Harry told him: ‘If you had listened to me, this wouldn’t have happened to you.’
The Sussexes were said to have been angry at Mr Markle selling photos of himself to a paparazzi agency in the run-up to the wedding.
Last month he announced he was flying to the UK for the royal celebrations and said he wanted to meet Harry and Meghan, who will be attending, along with their son Archie, three, and 11-month-old daughter Lilibet.
Mr Markle said he also wanted to meet Prince Charles and joked that they had both been ‘ghosted by our own children’.
Speaking to GB News from his home in Rosarito at the time, Mr Markle said: ‘I’m looking forward to it.
‘I’m going to show my respect for the Queen and I’m going to make sure that the Queen understands that my entire family respects the Queen and the royals.
‘We admire them and we want them to know that’s how we feel about them and that’s how we feel about England.’
He added that he felt he had a right to meet his grandchildren.
In her interview with Oprah Winfrey in March last year, Meghan talked about the betrayal she felt when it emerged that her father had been working with a photo agency.
She said: ‘We called my dad and I asked him [if he talked to the tabloids] and he said ‘No, absolutely not’ and I said, ‘You know the institution has never intervened for anything for us, but they can try to go in and kill this story, but if they do this once we’re not going to be able to use that same leverage to protect our own kids one day. I just need you to tell me and if you tell me the truth we can help.’ ‘
According to Meghan, her father ‘wasn’t able to do that’ and she said his refusal to answer was ‘so hard for me to reconcile’.
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