Meghan Markle's Credibility Questioned; New Court Docs Claim She Wrote Her Dad A Letter With 'Public Consumption in Mind'
New evidence reveals Meghan Markle may have misled about her claims in the past, casting doubt on her credibility.
The Duchess of Sussex's assertions that a handwritten letter she gave her father Thomas Markle was private and for his eyes only may have been proven false, according to a Court of Appeal hearing on Tuesday, after texts she sent to a royal aide revealed that the letter was prepared with "public consumption in mind."
According to the Daily Mail, evidence from former Kensington Palace communications chief Jason Knauf contradicted Meghan's denials that she cooperated with the authors of their unofficial biography, "Finding Freedom," which unleashed a new wave of revelations about her and her husband, Prince Harry's, strained relationship with the British royal family.
The publishers of the Mail on Sunday and Mail Online have appealed a High Court ruling that their decision to publish excerpts from the former "Suits" star's 2018 letter was "unlawful."
The 40-year-old Duchess of Cornwall successfully sued the two magazines for printing parts of a handwritten letter she said was private correspondence made to her estranged father after he suffered a heart attack and was unable to attend their 2018 royal wedding.
The publisher told the London Court of Appeal that there is additional material, with Andrew Caldecott QC informing the justices that the evidence is in the form of texts from Knauf.
He also contended that the estranged father had the right to divulge what his daughter said in the letter in order to "correct some falsehoods" in an article published in People magazine a few days before the Mail on Sunday and Ma published the letter.
The piece in People magazine featured five unidentified acquaintances of the Duchess of Sussex who spoke about her connection with her father and the royal family in great detail.
TM is a special kind of a monster. He got a letter from his daughter Meghan Markle saying, “I love you dad” and “all I ask for is peace” and he still continued to bully her through the media that was and is actively trying to destroy her. Even lied in court about her. pic.twitter.com/EG1E1uRppj
— ⚜️TV Fanatic⚜️ (@TvKhaleesi) January 19, 2021
Meghan Markle's privacy claim should have gone to trial, according to the publisher's counsel.
Caldecott told the Court of Appeal that the former royal's claim was "diminished and overwhelmed" by her father's right to respond after People magazine published "false and deceptive" allegations.
"The claimant's letter and the People article both make allegations against Mr Markle of cruelly cold-shouldering the claimant in the pre-wedding period... The article, or its gist, was reported worldwide."
It went on to say, "The claimant's letter and the People article both make allegations against Mr Markle of cruelly cold-shouldering the claimant in the pre-wedding period... The article, or its gist, was reported worldwide."
In his testimony, Knauff also alleges that he believes Prince Harry and Meghan Markle cooperated extensively with the authors of "Finding Freedom," Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand.
The court papers said, "At or about the same time as the People article appeared, the claimant cooperated with the authors of a book, later entitled Finding Freedom, through her communications secretary Jason Knauf in Autumn and Winter 2018."
