Meghan Markle's sister launches defamation lawsuit over Oprah interview

Samantha Markle is suing her half-sister, the Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle, for erasing both her and their mutual father out of her purported upbringing. Samantha says the impoverished background that Meghan claimed she came from is a lie. The complaint was filed by Samantha against Meghan in Tampa, Florida.

Meghan's friend Omid Scobie is named several times in the lawsuit, who responded, "A burn from Meghan's attorney Michael Kump: '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 notion that Meghan Markle's upbringing was a "rags to riches" tale like she claims is being cast into doubt. Samantha elaborates on this further with examples like that the Duchess of Sussex never had to pay for her college education whatsoever, despite telling both Ellen DeGeneres and Oprah Winfrey otherwise.

As for the claims made against Meghan, the central points of the complaint point to the Oprah Winfrey interview from March 2021 and the book about her by Scobie titled Finding Freedom published August 2020. Samantha demands compensation on the basis of "Plaintiff has suffered actual damages in the form of lost employment, lost income from sales of her autobiography, emotional and mental distress, including anxiety and fear due to the threatening and violent emails and messages she receives regularly, and harm to her reputation and credibility."

As an extension to the first claim, Samantha alleges that Markle created a fake background about her upbringing in order to sell herself as a royal. "Among other things, Defendant's false statements created the defamatory implication that Plaintiff had no relationship whatsoever with her sister Meghan and that Plaintiff has created a lucrative career selling false stories to tabloids and television programs when she knows nothing about Defendant's childhood."

Markle claims in her lawsuit that Meghan leveraged the power of the Royal Family's public relations reach in such a fashion that it became "a premeditated campaign to destroy" any ability for her to correct the record, one of the claims being that Markle having no past history with her half-sister is false.

This is where TMZ's reporting on the matter gets into the details. "Samantha claims Meghan got it flat out wrong when she told Oprah Samantha only changed her surname to Markle after Meghan started dating Harry," the outlet says.

Other reported embellishments, as pointed out by Daily Mail, are Meghan's assertions that "her family could only afford the $4.99 salad at Sizzlers," which Samantha claims are untrue.

It's explained that the only reason that Thomas Markle couldn't attend his daughter's May 2018 Royal wedding was because he suffered two heart attacks as a result of the stress the occasion caused. While in hospital, Thomas reportedly received "hurtful texts" from both Meghan and Prince Harry, who accused him of "working for the press."

"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," is what Meghan's attorney told TMZ in response to the lawsuit.

As for Prince Harry, he's vying to come back home to the UK after Prince Charles takes the throne. But also he's gone after the Daily Mail for reports made about his security arrangements when visiting the country.