Meghan Markle just dropped a bomb in court when she named the five friends of hers who gave an interview to People magazine blasting her father, Thomas Markle.
However, she also denied that she authorized her friends to give this interview.
Daily Mail [1] reported that this was revealed in court documents related to Meghan’s battle against the press.
She is currently suing MailOnline’s owner Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) over an article that reproduced parts of a handwritten note she had sent to her father in August of 2018.
The documents also revealed that Meghan, 38, said she felt “unprotected” by the “institution” of the royal family, and did not feel like she could defend herself against the false allegations being leveled against her by the media.
ANL has said that Thomas only gave them the letter to share after Meghan’s five friends talked about it in their interview with People in a way that he felt vilified him.
In the new legal documents released today, Meghan identified the five friends only as A, B, C, D and E, although she did reveal their real names in a confidential section.
The friends have never been named publicly, with People referring to them only as “Meghan’s inner circle – a longtime friend, a former co-star, a friend from LA, a one-time colleague and a close confidante.”
The five friends may be asked to testify at trial about whether or not Meghan knew they were speaking to the publication.
The focus of any trial that takes place would be on whether or not Meghan had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of the letter to her father, given that her friends had already revealed the contents of it to People.
Daily Mail reported that the new documents also revealed:
- Meghan believes her wedding to Prince Harry in Windsor in 2018 generated £1billion in tourism revenue;
- The Duchess pointed out Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie and Prince Michael “undertake paid work” as royals;
- Meghan denied saying in the letter that she felt her father had “victimised” her and she had “only one father”;
- She wrote the letter to stop him being ‘manipulated’ by the Press, rather than “an attempt at reconciliation”;
- Meghan spent her own money on flights for her father to and from to London and his hotel for her wedding;
- The Duchess felt “unprotected” by the “institution” of the Royal Family and was prevented from defending herself, which left her friends “rightly concerned for her welfare, specifically as she was pregnant.”
Meghan’s lawyers claimed that “Friend A” spoke anonymously to People and made a “passing reference to the letter,” which was something that Meghan did not know she was going to do.
They added that Meghan “did not know about the interview having been given, and only found out about it, and any reference to the Letter, after the People magazine article was published.”
This piece originally appeared in UpliftingToday.com [2] and is used by permission.
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