Samantha Markle

Samantha is the paternal half-sister of Meghan, Duchess of Sussex. She and Meghan, who is 16 years younger, share the same father, Thomas Markle Sr.

In November 2017, shortly after confirming she was working on a memoir titled The Diary of Princess Pushy’s Sister, Samantha told Us Weekly she had barely spoken to Meghan since 2008. Neither Samantha nor Thomas attended Meghan’s May 2018 wedding to Prince Harry: The only family member of Meghan’s family to attend the event was Doria Ragland, Meghan’s mother.

Samantha and Meghan’s relationship made headlines again in March 2019 after Samantha criticized the duchess over the letter that Meghan wrote to Thomas in the wake of his staged paparazzi photo scandal, in which Meghan wrote that the publicity flap broke her heart “into a million pieces.” (Samantha later claimed responsibility for the scandal on Twitter.)

“She doesn’t have a heart or she would [be] doing everything she could to make him comfortable, and reciprocate, and be loving and gracious, and make sure he’s comfortable in his old age,” Samantha said at the time, speaking in the documentary Meghan and the Markles: A Family at War. “So broken heart? No, his heart’s broken. She can’t turn herself into the victim here.”

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Samantha also confirmed to Us in November 2017 that she has used a wheelchair ever since being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.