Meghan Markle has worn many public hats since marrying Prince Harry, but she's kept pretty
quiet about her own family.
Here are just a few of the Markle family's darkest secrets.
Meghan's relationship with her estranged father Thomas Markle came under intense media scrutiny
as soon as she and Prince Harry announced their engagement in November 2017.
It reached a fever pitch in the days leading up to the wedding in May 2018, when the Daily
Mail exposed how Thomas teamed up with a photography agency in Los Angeles to stage photos related
to Thomas' wedding preparations.
Pictures of the father of the bride lounging at Starbucks, visiting an internet café to
research Harry and Meghan, exercising to lose weight, and getting measured to fit into his
wedding attire were all staged, the site reported.
The 17-year-old pictured measuring Thomas wasn't a tailor - he was a student working
at a nearby party supply store who was recruited to participate, as he told the Daily Mail.
The student admitted,
"It was really strange.
This big American guy got the measuring tape out of his pocket and he was saying things
in English.
The photographer he was with stepped back to the street and started taking pictures."
Thomas later told "Good Morning Britain" that he jumped at the opportunity to stage the
pictures in order to, quote, "change [his] image," wanting to turn the "negative" perception
the public had of him into a positive one.
Admitting his mission completely failed, Thomas said he felt bad about his "mistake."
The royal family - who had previously issued statements pleading with the paparazzi to
leave Thomas alone - was reportedly embarrassed by the incident.
After the unnecessary layer of spectacle that Thomas added to her royal wedding - which
he ultimately didn't attend because of medical issues and embarrassment, according to TMZ
- Meghan wrote a private letter to her dad pleading with him to stop cooperating with
the press.
In the note, Meghan said she felt "absolutely blindsided" by the "pain" her father was "puppeteered"
into creating by the media.
"I never thought that this would be easy, but I thought it would be fair, and that's
the part that's really hard to reconcile."
She said that the lies her father was spreading about her with the help of the media have,
quote, "broken [her] heart into a million pieces" and claimed that she had only ever
wanted to "help" him, whether it be financially, medically, or with the harassment he had claimed
to her that he was experiencing, no thanks to the paparazzi.
At the end of her letter, Meghan begged,
"Please stop lying, please stop creating so much pain, please stop exploiting my relationship
with my husband, and please stop taking the bait from the press."
But he did the exact opposite.
Thomas sold the letter to the Mail on Sunday, and the site published it for the world to
see even more Markle family secrets.
The duchess later sued Associated Newspapers Limited, the owners of the site, for "breach
of privacy" - and she won.
According to Meghan's estranged half-sister, Samantha Markle, the Duchess of Sussex is
allegedly responsible for hiding some family secrets of her own.
In her first book, "The Diary of Princess Pushy's Sister Part 1," Samantha makes some
startling claims about her sibling.
Meghan is supposedly "demanding" and ungrateful for their father's early financial help.
Samantha wrote,
"He was paying for Meg to get a great education, and instead of showing gratitude, she was
being belittling and controlling."
"If you are interested in helping those less fortunate than yourself, it really should
begin at home."
Samantha, who is significantly older than Meghan, said that there was a time when the
younger sibling, quote, "got whatever she wanted and needed" from Thomas.
Despite the fact that her book paints both Meghan and Prince Harry in a negative light,
Samantha told Us Weekly that she didn't decide to write it to, quote, "put garbage into the
universe" about her sister or her in-laws, saying,
"Contrary to troll gossip and aggregate news rumors, my book has never been designed to
attack my sister."
"It never was a nasty slamming tell-all but that, there's some juice but there's a lot
more to it."
Not all members of Meghan's family are willing to go on record with their names when they
decide to share potentially damaging secrets about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
Meghan and Prince Harry live closer to Meghan's family now that they have decided to live
a more private life in the U.S., but an anonymous family member shared with Fox News that their
move doesn't exactly mean Meghan will be contacting relatives to have play dates with their kids
any time soon.
Responding to the idea sarcastically, the source responded,
"Yeah, right after I set up a play date with Oprah Winfrey's family, too?
We're clearly in different social classes and we won't ever talk again."
The insider also insinuated that Meghan now believes she is better than her family, and
that they're not interested in having a relationship with her if it's going to be fake.
The source went on to say,
"You shouldn't have to be someone you're not, or a certain class to be accepted and loved.
I'm not chasing after someone that doesn't want to talk to me.
I have my own family and we couldn't be happier sharing the love that we have."
Meghan's lack of contact with her family is allegedly "her choice," the family member
said.
Still, the insider did wish Harry and Meghan well.
Whatever her intentions may be, Meghan's half-sister, Samantha Markle, certainly appears in the
news often.
In May 2018, her boyfriend, Mark Phillips, told TMZ that she had allegedly broken her
ankle and fractured her knee in a car accident that happened while the couple was fleeing
from paparazzi in Florida.
Phillips claimed that while trying to ditch cars chasing them, he hit a concrete barrier.
On May 17th, one day after TMZ's original report and two days before Prince Harry and
Meghan's wedding, the Daily Mail reported that Florida police could find "no evidence"
of the alleged events.
In fact, Samantha and Phillips could have actually been charged with a "hit and run
misdemeanor," which could have resulted in as much as two months in jail or a few lesser
charges.
At the time, a lieutenant explained to the Daily Mail,
"Even if they hit a stationary property such as a wall under Florida law you are required
to report that to law enforcement."
Samantha and Phillips don't appear to have been charged with anything, but the timing
of the alleged accident seems a bit fishy.
One of the many reasons why Prince Harry's engagement to Meghan initially caused a stir
is because she's a divorced woman - making her the first divorcée to enter the royal
family.
Meghan was married to film producer and literary manager Trevor Engelson from 2011 to 2013,
according to Elle magazine.
The Sun reported that the union ultimately ended because Meghan's filming schedule for
her TV show "Suits" strained their marriage.
A friend of the exes told royal biographer Andrew Morton, who wrote 2018's "Meghan: A
Hollywood Princess," that Engelson was shocked by Meghan's decision to end the marriage and
felt like, quote, "he was a piece of something stuck to the bottom of her shoe" when she
told him she wanted to divorce.
Meghan's decision reportedly came "totally out of the blue" and caused friends of the
couple to choose sides.
Many apparently did not pick Meghan.
In fact, the duchess' ex-bestie, who was the maid of honor at Meghan's first wedding, apparently
ended their friendship because of how Meghan allegedly treated Engelson.
The former friend claimed to the Daily Mail,
"The way she handled it, Trevor definitely had the rug pulled out from under him.
He was hurt."
Meghan's father Thomas and her half-sister, Samantha Markle, are in the public eye often.
But her half-brother, Thomas Markle Jr., made some startling allegations of his own against
his father in a 2018 interview with InTouch Weekly.
Thomas Jr. claimed his father would "snort cocaine" in front of his kids during parties
held in the '80s, but overall was "very distant" and absent often due to his busy work schedule,
and seemed, quote, "secretive," "quiet," and "grumpy" whenever he was at home.
He also alleged that Thomas Sr. took several trips to Thailand, allegedly to sleep with
sex workers.
Ultimately, Thomas Jr. called his relationship with his father "frustrating" and "non-existent,"
and also echoed sister Samantha's claims that Thomas Sr. favored Meghan, saying,
"[My father] didn't really have the time for me and [Samantha] like he did for Meg."
"I fell in love with her and I've been that way for 40 years."
According to Mirror, Thomas Sr. has confirmed that he did drugs when Meghan was growing
up to cope with the pressure that comes with working in Hollywood.
"There's a good chance I might never see my grandchildren."
Even though he's not in the public eye as much as other members of his family, Thomas
Markle Jr. has made some very extreme claims about Meghan.
In a 2020 interview with New Idea, Thomas Jr. seemingly blamed the duchess for more
recent hardships in his life - he'd broken up with his partner, lost jobs, and was homeless.
After calling the Markle name a "curse," he went on to say,
"Being associated with Meghan has nearly destroyed me.
I am homeless and could have been under a bridge with a cardboard sign begging for money
but thankfully my mum has taken me in.
Meghan could have helped me or got someone else at the palace to do so."
"I feel a bit betrayed being shoved off to the side like I don't exist."
He went on to call Prince Harry and Meghan "hypocrites," and added,
"[My family and I] have all been blamed for making money and now they're doing the same
thing [since stepping back from royal duties].
The only difference is, we're all broke."
At this point, it might not come as a surprise that many of Meghan's family members have
financial issues and have filed for bankruptcy.
Vanity Fair reported that Thomas Markle Sr. did so in 2016, years after winning the lottery
that potentially helped him pay for some of Meghan's college education.
He had to file after "poor investments and family feuds" left him with no other choice.
In 2018, The Blast reported that Thomas Sr. had filed for bankruptcy three times in total
and lived off of a small retirement fund and social security payments.
His older children followed in their father's footsteps and filed for bankruptcy in 2003
and 2012, respectively.
Thomas Jr. said he had ten dollars to his name, but that he owed $88,000 in debt at
the time, according to Vanity Fair.
Royal fans most likely already know that Meghan is close to her mother, Doria Ragland, who
doesn't seem to have as many dark secrets as her ex-husband - but Vanity Fair reported
that Ragland also had to file for bankruptcy when a Los Angeles boutique she owned failed.
There's a lengthy history of alleged abuse in Meghan's family that may explain some of
the estrangement between them - and the extreme measures some of them have seemingly taken
to get attention from the press.
Meghan's half-sister, Samantha Markle, is an alleged abuser, according to her daughter
- but she is also an alleged victim of domestic violence.
In December 2020, the Daily Mail reported that Samantha's partner, Mark Phillips, was
arrested on charges of domestic violence after "hitting [her] in the face during a fight."
He was taken into the Polk County Jail in Florida and released the same day.
The couple reportedly began arguing because Samantha - who has Multiple Sclerosis - had
personal care needs in the middle of the night that Phillips didn't want to help her with.
He reportedly hit Samantha "on the right side of her face in the ear area."
He apparently "fled the scene," but authorities later confirmed Phillips was "the primary
aggressor."
While Phillips' court date was set for mid-January 2021, according to The Daily Beast, it has
remained unclear where his case stands, as of September 2021.
If you or someone you know is dealing with domestic abuse, you can call the National
Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233.
You can also find more information, resources, and support at their website.