During the now-famous Oprah with Meghan and Harry interview, Meghan Markle discussed the "betrayal"
she felt when her father, Thomas Markle, spoke to the press and lied to her about it.
She also said that the royal family and the institution surrounding them
didn't do much to protect her parents from the barrage of reporters and paparazzi that began
severely hounding them in advance of Meghan's wedding to Prince Harry in 2018. While Oprah
had to push a bit before Meghan admitted how hurtful her father's behavior had been,
she did admit that his lies caused a deep rift in their relationship.
Now, in what seems like doubling down on his initial offense of speaking to the press,
Thomas has done so again. While this time he has expressed remorse for lying to Meghan,
he also seems to dismiss her concerns and lingering misgivings about the situation.
He sat down for an interview on Good Morning Britain, and said,
"Bottom line is I've never heard back from Meghan or Harry in any way shape or form […] When they
say I'm taking advantage of the press, basically what I do is, I do a story for the press."
"If I don't hear from them in 30 days, then I do another story for the press."
Thomas said he's apologized to Meghan, quote,
"at least a hundred times" since lying to her about speaking with the press. He went on to say,
"I wish I hadn't done the whole thing, but here's the other side of this coin:
It's like, no one took any time to protect any member of our family. We were attacked."
Regarding her statement in the Oprah interview about an
unnamed royal's concerns over the color of Archie's skin, Thomas said,
"It could have been just a stupid question from someone, someone who doesn't understand, you
know. A black person marries a white person. What do you get? You never know, but you get a baby."
"It could be somebody asked a stupid question rather than being a total racist."
He also seemingly took a jab at Prince Harry's regrettable youthful indiscretions, saying,
"I've never played naked pool. I've never dressed up like Hitler."
Thomas admits he hasn't heard from his daughter in about four years,
and the last time he heard from either Meghan or Harry was after he had had a heart attack. He says
Harry called him in the hospital and claims the prince said something along the lines of:
"if you had listened to me, this wouldn't have happened to you."
Thomas calls the comment "snotty," and so he hung up on Harry.
In spite of all this, Thomas says since he now lives about 70 miles from Meghan,
he hopes to meet Archie and "get together" someday soon.
It's possible that Meghan and Harry might want to keep their son — and their unborn daughter — away
from their grandfather, though, in spite of his desire to reconcile. In the Oprah interview,
Meghan revealed that she felt like her father had worked against not only her but also his future
grandchildren with his lies. She explained that she begged her dad to tell her the truth about
whether or not he had been in contact with the press ahead of her wedding. She revealed,
"When we were told by the comms team that this was a story, we called my dad and I
asked him. He said, 'No, absolutely not.' [...] I said, 'The institution has never intervened
on anything for us, but they can try to go in and kill this story. But if they do this once,
we're not going to be able to use that same leverage to protect our own kids one day.'"
Still, Meghan's dad denied everything,
and she views it as not just a move against her but also against her kids. She went on to say,
"And that, for me, has really resonated,
especially now as a mother. Me saying, 'Full stop, if we use this to protect you,
we won't be able to protect our children one day — we're talking about your grandchildren.
I look at Archie [...] and I genuinely can't imagine doing anything to intentionally cause
pain to my child. I can't imagine it. So it's hard for me to reconcile that."
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