Meghan Markle is being sued for defamation by her half-sister Samantha Markle.
The court documents obtained by the media claim Samantha is suing Meghan for "defamation based on demonstrably false and malicious statements made by her half-sister to a worldwide audience."
Meghan's comments to Oprah during their 2021 interview were the subject of Samantha's lawsuit.
Furthermore, Samantha claims that Meghan "published and disseminated false and malicious statements" against her in her 2020 book, Finding Freedom: Harry and Meghan and the Making of A Modern Royal Family.
According to the lawsuit, Meghan's comments about Samantha were "lies designed to destroy [Samantha's] reputation and which have subjected [her] to humiliation, shame and hatred on a worldwide scale."
According to Samantha, Meghan "orchestrated the campaign to defame and destroy her sister's and her Father's reputation and credibility in order to preserve and promote the false 'rags-to-royalty' narrative Defendant had fabricated about her life to the Royal Family and the worldwide media."
As she continued, she denies claims Markle made about spending little time with Samantha while she was growing up, as well as statements she made claiming that Samantha was a "high school dropout." After the news first broke that Meghan and Prince Harry were dating in 2018, she claims Meghan said that Samantha changed her last name to Markle.
It is Samantha's intention to seek damages of $75,000 and has requested a jury trial.
According to Samantha Markle, she was "subject to humiliation, shame & hatred on a worldwide scale" by Meghan Markle.
In the public eye, Samantha and Meghan have had a bad relationship for over five years. A frequent and outspoken critic of Meghan, Samantha insisted in a 2018 interview with ITV's Good Morning Britain that she was not "cashing in" on her fame.
"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," Samantha said. "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 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?"
"No one has a copyright on our life experiences and so, I think the public forgets that within the family, we're each individuals with our own life experiences," she continued. "With all due respect, it's not just Meghan. We're entitled to share that. We're entitled to be open about it and if we can shed some light on some issues for the public, then great and we can enjoy the process. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. It's not disparaging. It's not harmful."
Source: ET
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