Meghan: Dad betrayed me talking to the media

THE Duchess of Sussex has revealed her bitterness at what she sees as a ‘betrayal’ by her father.

In an exchange left out of the final programme but aired on US breakfast TV yesterday, Meghan said Thomas Markle went behind her back to speak to the Press.

Asked how she felt about this, the duchess said she did not know if she was comfortable ‘even talking about that’ before calling her father’s actions a ‘betrayal’.

She said that shortly before her 2018 wedding, Buckingham Palace officials had heard rumours that Mr Markle – a retired TV lighting director living in Mexico – had co-operated with the media.

According to the duchess, she told him that she could arrange for the Palace to try to ‘kill this story’.

But she said she emphasised to him that the Palace ‘has never intervened for anything for us’ and if they sought its help on this occasion, ‘we’re not going to be able to use that same leverage to protect our kids one day’. Meghan said her father, now 76, reassured her that he had no intention of talking to the media.

However, he had arranged a series of photo stunts with a paparazzo relating to him getting ready for the wedding, exposed before the big day.

Mr Markle did not attend the ceremony as he was in hospital after a heart attack and is now estranged from his daughter.

The duchess told Oprah Winfrey that his failure to be truthful with her, even after she had mentioned the possible consequences for his own grandchildren, had ‘really resonated’ with her, ‘especially now as a mother’.

She added: ‘I mean, I look at Archie, I think about this child and I genuinely can’t imagine doing anything to intentionally cause pain to my child. So it’s hard for me to reconcile that.’

The duchess contrasted her father’s behaviour with that of her mother, Doria Ragland, who ‘has remained in silent dignity for four years watching me go through this’.