‘ Meghan’s SHE Big Brother: TURNED HER BACK ON HER FAMILY’
Meghan Markle ignores her loved one’s pleas for help
Tom Markle Jr. wanted his little sister to know how happy he was for her. “Congratulations on your wedding engagement. I’m so proud of you, you’re awesome,” he wrote to Meghan Markle, with whom he shares a father, in a letter emailed to a palace staffer in January. Tom went on to apologize for any embarrassment she might have felt after “untrue” stories about him hit the press and explained that he’s had “difficulty starting life over” in Oregon since their family was thrust into the spotlight because of her romance with Prince Harry, 33. He ended the note wishing his sister and her fiancé “all the best,” adding, “love you Meg.”
But Meghan never responded. Since October 2017, Tom, 51, and his lawyer have been going back and forth with the palace, emails (right) reveal, trying in vain to connect with the future royal and ask for her help dealing with the international scrutiny he’s been under since Harry and Meghan announced their engagement in late November. Instead, he learned that his half-sibling, 36, wants nothing to do with him or his side of the family. “My lawyer had a phone meeting with her lawyer, and he emailed me some of [Meghan’s] direct words. She said, ‘That’s distant family and I don’t know those people.’ That’s pretty harsh,” Tom tells In Touch, calling it “a slap in the face” and “below the belt.”
Tom finds it “ridiculous” that Meghan thinks of him as a stranger. “I spent a lot of time with her growing up,” explains Tom, who was 14 and living with his dad, now 73, and Thomas Markle Sr.’s then-wife, Doria Ragland, 61, when Meghan was born. Even after their divorce, “she was surrounded by family.” He insists they’ve “always been on good terms” and that in the years before she landed a starring role on Suits, “we would all get together and go out to eat and spend a few hours with [our] grandmother every weekend.” He does, however, admit, “I haven’t seen her since she left for Toronto [to film Suits in 2011].”
PALACE PLEA In the past year, Tom says, he’s lost work and has had to move three times because of all the interest in Meghan. “There was a time where people were following me around at work, taking pictures and posting horrible stories about me and my family saying I’m a white supremacist, a drug addict and a dealer, all this crap that just isn’t true,” he explains. (Though it is true he was arrested during a domestic dispute in early 2017, all charges were swiftly dismissed.) “My attorney was reaching out to her people and the palace to basically [ help us] try to get a retraction for all these false stories in [countries] where there are different laws.” But despite his lawyer’s pleas for the palace to “take some action to protect him,” emails show that a rep from Harry’s office simply told him, “I am so sorry to hear you have been having a tough time with the media.”
Tom can only speculate about why Meghan has shut him out. “Maybe Hollywood and her success did jade her a bit,” he says. “But I didn’t bring this [negative attention] on myself. She should step up to the plate and do something and help — at least acknowledge it.” ◼