Meghan Markle’s legal team revealed that the Duchess of Sussex had provided a third party with personal info and her “true” position towards her father, being aware that the person in question would be approached by the authors of bombshell ‘Finding Freedom’ book, the documents recently filed to High Court revealed, as cited by the Daily Mail.
According to Markle’s lawyers, the former actress was allegedly concerned about the narrative her dad Thomas Markle was creating in the media with “false” claims that she “had not even tried to contact him” and fully “abandoned him.”
“Accordingly, she indicated to a person whom she knew had already been approached by the authors that the true position as above (which that person and several others who knew the Claimant already knew) could be communicated to the authors to prevent any further misrepresentation,” the documents from her legal team reportedly state.
The Duchess of Sussex, however, “does not know to what extent or in what terms this one item of information concerning her communications with her father was shared with the authors,” the lawyers added.
They also said that Prince Harry’s wife was not aware whether the Kensington Palace Communications team had been in contact with Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand, the authors of Finding Freedom, on her behalf. A newly published tell-all biography was set to detail the Sussexes royal life and departure from their duties at the start of the year, mostly portraying the couple’s exit from the court as a struggle for independence.
Meghan Markle’s Legal Fight With British Tabloids
The filed documents came as a response to a recent court ruling which allowed The Mail on Sunday to use extracts from the Finding Freedom in its defence against Meghan Markle’s legal action.
In 2019, the Duchess of Sussex filed a claim against Associated Newspapers, a parent company of The Mail on Sunday and Daily Mail, over the misuse of private information and breach of data protection act over the publication of her letter to her father back in 2018, shortly after her wedding to Prince Harry.
Her husband said back in October 2019 that the letter was redacted to “purposely misled” the readers “by strategically omitting select paragraphs, specific sentences, and even singular words to mask the lies they had perpetuated for over a year”.
The newspaper’s spokesperson denied claims that the published letter was “edited in any way that changed its meaning."
In its defence, The Mail on Sunday maintains that it was Thomas Markle who asked the media to publish the extracts from the letter after claims about its existence started to circulate. The outlet alleges that Meghan Markle knew that her note was going to be made public in a bid to use is as a “wider strategy”.
The newspaper also claims that the Duchess has cooperated with the Finding Freedom authors and allowed them to publish extracts from her letter to Thomas, something her father did in relation to the British tabloid. However, the royal’s legal team has now denied this statement.
In another argument, The Mail on Sunday also states that the letter cannot be counted as Markle’s “own intellectual creation” as her then-Communications Secretary Jason Knauf allegedly contributed to its writing. The royal’s team has responded by saying that Knauf had provided “feedback” on the letter’s drafting, but “not actual wording”.
The Duchess and her 76-year-old father were expected to meet in the High Court this January, however, Meghan Markle has now won a nine-month postponement to the trial, citing “confidential” reasons.