‘WITH PREJUDICE’

Meghan Markle Wins Defamation Lawsuit Brought by Half-Sister Samantha

A Tampa judge said Meghan Markle’s half-sister had failed to prove the Duchess of Sussex defamed her.

Samantha Markle’s defamation lawsuit against her half-sister Meghan Markle has been dismissed by a Florida district court judge with prejudice after a failure to produce statements that could support a claim for defamation.

It was the third time that Samantha, 59, had tried to bring the case, claiming that Meghan, 42, defamed her when she told Oprah Winfrey, during a bombshell 2021 interview with Prince Harry, that she “grew up as an only child” and didn’t have a significant relationship with Samantha.

Samantha complained that Meghan cast her as an opportunist and damaged her reputation and credibility.

Samantha, who is Meghan’s half-sister from father Thomas Markle’s first marriage, alleged that Meghan exposed her to “humiliation, shame and hatred on a worldwide scale” and pursued a “false rags-to-royalty narrative,” claiming childhood hardship, which destroyed her reputation.

Samantha, who suffers from multiple sclerosis and uses a wheelchair, was seeking $75,000 in damages.

Previous attempts to sue Meghan for defamation were thrown out in 2022 and 2023 when a judge ruled: “As a reasonable listener would understand it, defendant merely expresses an opinion about her childhood and her relationship with her half-siblings. Thus, the court finds that defendant’s statement is not objectively verifiable or subject to empirical proof."

On Monday, dismissing and closing the case permanently, U.S. District Court Judge Charlene Edwards Honeywell ruled that Samantha had “failed to identify any statements that could support a claim for defamation or defamation-by-implication.”

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Tom SykesEuropean Editor at Large

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