Meghan’s smile in face of bitter new family rift
No wonder he’s not invited to the wedding!
WITH just one month to go before her wedding, Meghan Markle will no doubt have more than enough to think about.
So she can probably do without her dysfunctional family heaping embarrassment on her – as they decided to do yesterday. First of all her half-brother criticised her for failing to invite him to the ceremony at Windsor Castle, calling her a ‘phoney Diana’. Then his sister weighed in by accusing Prince Harry of hypocrisy in offering ‘shout outs about humanitarianism’ while allowing ‘Meg to ignore the Markles’. ‘Man up,’ she told the Queen’s grandson. Meghan has not seen either of her half siblings – Thomas Markle Junior, 51, and Samantha Markle, 53 – for up to ten years, and everyone appears to be estranged from everyone else.
However, the constant sniping is sure to be hitting Meghan, 36, as arrangements for her wedding to Harry come to a head. Kensington Palace declined to comment last night but sources close to the actress have previously done their best to distance her from the extended Markle clan.
Thomas Markle Junior is 15 years older than Meghan and lives in Grants Pass, Oregon, where he has worked as a glazer. He is the product of his father Thomas’s first marriage to Roslyn Markle, who was married to him for seven years before he met Meghan’s mother, Doria Ragland.
Now aged 73, Meghan’s father lives a reclusive life and Kensington Palace has been unable to confirm whether he will even walk Miss Markle down the aisle.
Markle Junior claims his sister’s relationship with Harry has left an irrevocable rift between many of her relatives. More damagingly, he has also accused Meghan of portraying a ‘false image’ of herself. He told the Mirror: ‘Meg likes to portray herself as a humanitarian, a people’s person and a charitable person but she is none of those things to her family.
‘She is giving the greatest performance of her life. She is acting phoney.
‘I’ve read that Meg wants to be like Diana. Diana was worshipped by everyone in the world. She was loved for the right reasons. That’s what Meg wants to happen, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. She’s not genuine like Diana.’
Markle Junior – a father-of-two who was last year arrested after a domestic incident with his fiancée, which saw him accused of drunkenly pulling a gun on her – has not spoken to Meghan for seven years but says he still would have expected an invitation to her wedding.
He seizes on the fact that 600 guests have been invited to attend the nup- tials at St George’s Chapel on May 19, and a further 2,500 member of the public to watch proceedings from the Windsor Castle grounds.
‘She’s forgotten her flesh and blood,’ he told the newspaper. Markle Junior lived with Meghan and her parents when she was a child and said their close bond continued into adulthood.
He says they spent every other weekend together between 2009 and 2011 caring for their paternal grandmother Doris, who had dementia. He said: ‘We were so close back then, but when our grandmother died, [Meghan] moved to Toronto to start filming Suits and I didn’t see her.’
Markle Junior claims to have made three attempts to contact Meghan via Kensington Palace, but said he hasn’t heard a word of acknowledgement.
He points out that the Duchess of Cambridge’s uncle, ‘family black sheep’ Gary Goldsmith, still gets invited to functions such as Pippa Middleton’s wedding. ‘No family is perfect. All families have their disputes and trouble,’ he maintained. Rather fancifully he asked: ‘Isn’t this where Charles or the Queen step in and say: “This is the way things are done. And your family need to be involved”.’
Despite the family rowing, Meghan can at least be glad of one piece of positive news – being hailed as one of the most influential people of the year.
She and Harry were named in the ‘leaders’ section of the annual poll published by Time Magazine.
A piece written by her friend Priyanka Chopra says: ‘This ever-smiling, strong free spirit found her prince, fell in love and in turn made a cynical world believe in fairy tales again. But more than anything else, Meghan is an important influencer in a world that needs strong public figures to respect and look up to.’
Meghan would be a ‘princess of the people’, she insisted.