The family feud lives on. Samantha Markle is reportedly suing half-sister Meghan Markle for defamation after the duchess and Prince Harry’s March 2021 CBS tell-all interview.
TMZ reported on Thursday, March 3, that Samantha, 57, claimed in court documents Meghan, 40, lied about her and their family during the sit-down. The Diary of Princess Pushy’s Sister author accused her sibling of making up stories about growing up in “virtual poverty.”
Samantha claimed that their father, Thomas Markle, paid for Meghan to attend “elite and expensive private schools.” She also alleged that their dad covered the Suits alum’s tuition at Northwestern University, despite Meghan’s assertions that she worked to pay her own way through college.
Elsewhere in the lawsuit, Samantha reportedly claimed that Meghan lied during the tell-all about the most recent time the siblings saw each other and when the elder changed her last name back to Markle.
According to the outlet, Samantha further alleged that the retired actress lied about Samantha and Thomas, 77, so that the two “could not interfere with or contradict the false narrative and fairytale life story [she] concocted.” She reportedly accused Meghan of negatively affecting sales of her autobiography, preventing her from getting jobs and causing her emotional and mental distress.
Meghan’s attorney Michael Kump fired back at the allegations, telling TMZ in a statement: “This baseless and absurd lawsuit is just a continuation of a pattern of disturbing behavior. We will give it the minimum attention necessary, which is all it deserves.”
The Duchess of Sussex claimed in her March 2021 interview that she had not seen Samantha in “at least 18, 19 years.” She also alleged that her half-sister “changed her last name back to Markle in her early 50s … only when I started dating Harry,” adding, “So, I think that says enough.”
Meghan broke her silence on Samantha’s book about her in a bonus clip from the sit-down, noting that it “would be very hard to ‘tell all’ when you don’t know me.”
She continued: “I grew up as an only child, which everyone who grew up around me knows, and I wished I had siblings. I would have loved to have had siblings.”
Samantha told Inside Edition at the time that “the truth was totally ignored and omitted” during the CBS special. “I don’t know how she can say, ‘I don’t know her,’ and she was an only child,” she said. “We’ve got photographs over a lifespan of us together. So how can she not know me?”
