But back in the States, spiteful sister launches video assault
‘She’s not going to tell me that I can’t speak about my life. She’s way out of her league ... I’m not going to take it’
SHE may be trying to focus on plans for her big day, but with a family like hers it was never going to be easy.
Last night Meghan Markle’s estranged half-sister, Samantha Markle – who has made no secret of her bitterness at not being invited to the wedding – launched another attack on the bride-to-be.
‘She’s not going to tell me that I can’t speak about my life,’ she said. ‘I’m not going to take it. She’s way out of her league to tell me that I can’t speak.’
Samantha, 53, one of two children born to Miss Markle’s father, Thomas Markle, from his first marriage, has given a series of stinging interviews about her sibling.
She has accused Miss Markle of abandoning her family, particularly her own father, during her quest for fame, and said Harry would be ‘appalled by what she’s done’.
Samantha, who hasn’t seen Miss Markle in a decade, has also dismissed the actress as ‘narcissistic and selfish’ and has even penned an as-yet-unpublished memoir entitled The Diary Of Princess Pushy’s Sister.
Her frequent and increasingly wild interventions have been met with a cold silence by Kensington Palace, although one friend of the couple said they were an example of ‘how complicated family relationships could be’.
Yesterday Samantha, herself a former actress who now lives in Florida, where she is estranged from her own brother and at least one of her three children, was on her soapbox again.
‘If it’s about my life or my father’s there is something in this country called freedom of speech,’ she told US media over video chat. ‘Meghan doesn’t have a copyright on that and she’s not going to tell me that I can’t speak about my life or my father’s life where it’s a matter of public self-defence.
‘The media is disparaging us. I’m not going to take it. This is not Great Britain. I am a United States citizen and that’s all there is to it. She’s way out of her league to tell me that I can’t speak.’
Samantha also said she had bought a ‘really sentimental’ wedding present for Harry and Miss Markle despite not being invited to the ceremony, and was hoping to give it to her half-sister in person.
In a series of other interviews with foreign media, she admitted that events this week had spun out of control.
She claimed it was her idea for their father to collude with a paparazzi photographer to stage pictures in the run-up to the wedding in order to ‘rehabilitate’ his image and help the Royal Family.
She said: ‘I would have liked to see her help him [their father] more. I feel that the red carpet should have been rolled out for him.’ Meanwhile, with no members of either side of Miss Markle’s family – apart from her mother – apparently attending Saturday’s ceremony, the brideto-be’s more distant relatives were popping up to cash in on their 15 minutes of fame. Miss Markle’s half-brother’s ex-wife, Tracy Dooley, who has not spoken to the actress for 20 years, was on a sightseeing tour of London with her two sons yesterday.
They were due to appear as wedding ‘pundits’ on ITV’s Good Morning Britain but last night a GMB spokesman said they had been pulled. One of Miss Markle’s nephews, Tyler, 25, who lives in Oregon, runs a legal cannabis farm and has created a royal wedding strain called Markle’s Sparkle. The family are staying in a hotel in Waterloo, central London.
Even the ‘respectable’ side of the family, such as Miss Markle’s uncle Frederick – the brother of her father, Thomas – will not be attending the wedding and have made clear they are put out. Frederick, 74, a clergyman who lives in Florida, will not even watch the recording of the event, his wife Theresa, 64, said.
She said: ‘I’m very excited and will record it and watch it later. Frederick has other plans.’