King Charles And Prince William Reportedly ‘Vehemently’ Tried To Stop Meghan Markle From Suing The Media Over Her Leaked Private Letter

This article has been updated since its initial publish date to include more info re: Meghan Markle’s leaked private letter to her father, Thomas Markle. 

Meghan Markle was reportedly almost stopped by King Charles and Prince William from suing the media after they leaked a private letter that she wrote to her father, as Geo News reports. The Duchess of Sussex, 41, was apparently told that there was “no use in retaliating after the outlet exposed her cries to dad.”

Geo News writes that Markle’s husband, Prince Harry penned, “Meg wanted to sue. Me too. Rather, we both felt we had no choice. If we didn’t sue over this, we said, what kind of signal would that be sending? To the press? To the world? So we conferred again with the Palace lawyer. We were given a runaround. I reached out to Pa and Willy.”

The Spare author, 38, added, “They’d both sued the press in the past over invasions and lies. Pa sued over so-called Black Spider Letters, his memos to government officials. Willy sued over topless photos of Kate. But both vehemently opposed the idea of Meg and me taking any legal action. Why? I asked. They hummed and hahed. The only answer I could get out of them was that it simply wasn’t advisable. The done thing, etc. I told Meg: You’d think we were suing a dear friend of theirs.”

READ MORE: King Charles (Finally) Announces Royal Titles For Prince Harry And Meghan Markle’s Kids

Anyone who has watched Netflix’s docuseries Harry & Meghan knows that the Sussexes have shared several shocking claims regarding the royal family’s treatment of them, and other points fans may have not previously thought about.

In the fifth episode of the hit series, Markle said that she reached out to the late Queen Elizabeth II for advice regarding her father’s infamously disparaging interviews about the royals after her and Harry’s 2018 wedding.

READ MORE: Meghan Markle Wore A Sleek Black Dress While Touching Down In NYC Amid Docuseries Release

The former Suits star’s estranged father, Thomas Markle, 78, has a history of talking down about his own daughter both before and after her wedding, and she acknowledged this in the episode. Meghan described her father’s criticism of the royal family at the time to be “very embarrassing for the family,” and “a problem that needed to be solved…they wanted me to make it stop.”

She went on, explaining how the queen got involved, adding, “And of course, I reached out to Her Majesty and was like ‘This is what’s going on. What do you want me to do? I want…whatever advice you have,'” she said. “But ultimately, it was suggested by the queen and the Prince of Wales [now King Charles] that I write my dad a letter,” she continued.

This letter, as Newsweek reports, was penned by the Duchess of Sussex in August 2018, and she also explained to viewers how she went to “great lengths to get that letter to my dad discreetly.” Two months later in October of 2018, British outlet Mail on Sunday published extracts from the letter. Thomas provided the letter to the newspaper, and deemed its contents to be a “dagger to the heart.”

The letter, as Meghan explained, expressed her understandable disapproval of her father’s actions after her marrying Harry. The mom of two also said in the docuseries that the reaction to the leaked letter was “horrendous.” Harry also claimed that the leaking of his wife’s handwritten letter to her estranged father “caused” a devastating miscarriage that she suffered. 

The Sussexes sued the publication for printing the private communication between the father and daughter. “We sat down with the lawyer for the institution [monarchy] and senior members of the palace,” Meghan said. “And it was in those meetings that I reminded them I wrote that letter at the guidance of senior members of the family.”

The two alleged that the palace stalled in bringing legal action against Mail on Sunday, and then the couple spoke about their decision to bring the case privately. The Deal or No Deal alum dubbed this legal case to be a turning point when it came to her relationship with the British media. “Everything changed after that,” she said in the episode.

While the lawsuit lasted two years, Meghan eventually won the case after Mail On Sunday appealed an initial ruling in her favor. The Court of Appeal upheld the judge’s finding, as Newsweek writes, that Meghan had a “reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of the letter and those contents were personal, private and not matters of legitimate public interest.”

In May 2022, Meghan faced criticism for not visiting her father after he reportedly had a stroke. Before this, Thomas allegedly planned to travel to London after being invited by a right-wing news channel to see Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee, when Meghan and Harry were scheduled to attend. Meghan’s relationship with her father, as Newsweek adds, is “complicated by the lawsuit launched against her” by her half-sister Samantha Markle.