Cover Story Meghan: Ruthless or unfair target?
After the release of Samantha Markle’s book, royal autobiographer Duncan Larcombe looks at why they may be just the ‘bitter rantings’ of a half-sister
The Duchess of Sussex is braced for a backlash after being branded ‘mean and controlling’ in a new book penned by her half-sister, Samantha Markle. Samantha’s memoir, The Diary of Princess Pushy’s Sister, has hit bookshelves four years after the 56-year-old revealed it was in the works.
The timing could be a bitter blow because of Meghan’s announcement that she and Harry are expecting their second child this summer.
Harry and Meghan made the announcement on Valentine’s Day by issuing a photo – exactly 37 years
‘YOU CAN’T CHOOSE YOUR FAMILY’
after Princess Diana revealed she was expecting Harry.
The happy news comes as Meghan faces fresh accusations that she neglected her father in the run-up to the 2018 royal wedding, and the book itself is a deeply personal broadside from one of her strongest critics.
Samantha – who shares father Thomas with Meghan – said her sister should have postponed the nuptials when her father had a heart attack, saying, ‘The royals couldn’t postpone the wedding so that my father could be included. I knew it was not unreasonable that they reschedule, given resources available to make that happen.’ The new autobiography reiterates Samantha’s previous allegations that Meghan shunned her American relatives and what she saw as cutting off their father days before the ceremony in 2018.
Despite being a blood relative,
Samantha Markle has been one of Meghan’s most outspoken critics since the royal engagement was announced, and has appeared in dozens of documentaries about her sibling.
But this is the first time Samantha has penned a book to cash in on her link to the royals, and her seemingly dysfunctional relationship with Meghan.
So far, Meghan is yet to make any comment on the book, and her spokespeople refused to say whether or not she has read it.
Unwelcome negativity
Meghan will likely be upset and hurt by the book, especially as it is written by one of her own siblings. And anything that may add to the negativity she and Harry have faced since quitting the royals will not be welcome.
Sources close to Meghan have hit back at how the book might be received by the public. One source said that Meghan will hope people realise that ‘you can’t choose your family’.
Officially, Meghan’s team is keen to avoid being dragged into a row over the book’s contents because it will ‘only give it the oxygen of publicity’. But they will be carefully watching how the book goes down because Meghan is clearly someone willing to call in the lawyers if she feels she’s been wronged – just weeks ago, for example, she won a high-court privacy battle against a Sunday newspaper.
The book lays bare details of the Markle siblings’ upbringing, including the rivalry between Meghan and Samantha when their father was still married to the actor’s mother, Doria Ragland. She says, ‘I always thought that my sister would become more like my father, but it seemed that with each passing day, she was becoming more like her mother.’
The Florida-based author is 17 years
Meghan’s elder. Their father, Thomas Sr, is a retired lighting director, who later married yoga teacher Ms Ragland, Meghan’s mother.
In the book, Samantha recalls watching Meghan rise to fame after getting her breakout role in TV drama Suits, in the same year she married her first husband, film producer Trevor Engelson.
Despite her success, Samantha says she couldn’t help but wonder how commuting and distance would affect her sister’s marriage, which she would later learn was on the rocks.
The 330-page autobiography is Samantha’s perspective on Meghan’s ‘royal fairy tale’ and their family upbringing. While Samantha claims the book is not a tell-all, it could be argued that the half-sister may be bitter at being left out in the cold.
A different person?
There are claims in the book that could cause Meghan concern. Perhaps the most upsetting accusation levelled at the duchess is a claim that, at times, she behaved differently if Harry was around.
According to Samantha, she once spoke to her father just minutes after he had come off the phone to Meghan.
‘I said, “Dad, what’s going on, what’s wrong?”,’ she claims. ‘He said, “This is really weird, [but] she’s not the same. When Harry is in the room, she is very sweet – a different person – but when he steps out of the room, she is mean and controlling.”’
For Meghan’s critics, this will fuel the theme that Meghan is a master manipulator, who can be ruthless getting what she wants.
But the vast majority of people are likely to doubt the claims and see this book as the rantings of a bitter sister, rather than an in-depth and unbiased assessment of Meghan’s character.
‘SHE BECAME LIKE HER MOTHER’