A duchess who has been estranged from her father for eight years and from her half-siblings for even longer; a brother and sister who went from allies to bitter adversaries; and a family patriarch whose own son reportedly contacted police with allegations of child sexual abuse.
The British Royal Family is frequently described as dysfunctional, but the Markle family’s divisions have been even more pronounced.
When the bells rang out at Windsor Castle on May 19, 2018, to mark Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding, the celebration was overshadowed by the bride’s strained relationship with her “other” family.
With the exception of Meghan’s mother, Doria Ragland, none of her close relatives attended. Their absence stood out at a ceremony filled with high-profile celebrities, many of whom had barely known the couple before the wedding.
Meghan’s father, Thomas Markle Sr, was absent officially because he was recovering from a heart attack and emergency surgery. Before that, however, he had said he was considering staying away after it emerged that a paparazzi photographer had paid him to pose for staged photographs while preparing for the royal wedding. Thomas later said he did not want to cause further embarrassment for the couple.
Meghan’s half-siblings, Samantha and Thomas Markle Jr, were also not invited. They are Thomas Sr’s children from his first marriage to Roslyn Loveless. Samantha later expressed her anger about the decision on social media.
“Out of respect and humanitarianism, the Markles should be invited if 2,000 complete strangers are,” Samantha, 61, wrote on Twitter. “Our uncle, brother, me, best friend of 30 years, nephews. At issue is not a matter of closeness. Family is family.”
Samantha, who is 17 years older than Meghan, claimed the family had been excluded to prevent them from challenging what she characterized as her half-sister’s polished account of her early life.
The Royal Family is often accused of being dysfunctional – but it has nothing on the Markles
Thomas Sr has long had a turbulent relationship with his younger daughter, Meghan
Even as the bells pealed at Windsor Castle on May 19, 2018, for Harry and Meghan’s wedding, the celebrations were overshadowed by her difficult relationship with her “other” family
There was, however, a clear reason the Sussexes may have chosen not to invite Samantha, a mother of three. Within days of news of Meghan and Harry’s relationship becoming public, she began making critical comments about her half-sister.
In a November 2016 interview published by The Sun, Samantha—described as a former actress who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2008—called Meghan “shallow” and accused her of being focused on “social climbing.”
“Hollywood has changed her. I think her ambition is to become a princess… It was something she dreamed of as a girl when we watched the royals on TV,” Samantha told the newspaper.
Samantha, who lives in Florida, acknowledged that she and Meghan had seen little of each other. She also said: “I didn’t feel a separation from her until I was in the wheelchair. The more high profile she became, she never mentioned me.”
Around the same period, Samantha was quoted by Radar Online in the United States as saying that she and her father had been hurt by what she described as Meghan’s lack of emotional and financial support after the actress became famous.
“The royal family would be appalled by what she’s done to her own family,” Samantha said.
The relationship appeared unlikely to improve. Samantha continued criticizing Meghan and Harry on Twitter, referring to her half-sister as “Cruella Deville” and “witchy poo.” She also addressed Prince Harry, urging him to “man up” and accusing him of hypocrisy for making “shout-outs about humanitarianism” while, in her view, allowing his future wife “to ignore the Markles.”
As the wedding drew closer, however, Samantha’s tone became more conciliatory. She expressed hope that she might still receive an invitation to the ceremony.
Meghan later said she had never been close to her half-sister and that they had not spoken since Meghan was in her “early twenties.”
But in an interview [with the Mirror] that was published four months before the wedding and seemed like a last-ditch attempt to get on the guest list, Samantha gently contradicted that timeline.
Samantha Markle was quoted telling Radar Online in the US that she and her father had been hurt by Meghan’s ‘lack of emotional and financial support’ since she became famous
Thomas Markle Jr, an ex-window fitter, has been less public than Samantha in his feuding with the duchess
Samantha Markle also said: ‘The royal family would be appalled by what she’s done to her own family’
She insisted they had spoken more recently than that – in December 2014, she said, while Meghan was making the TV series Suits in Canada when they chatted on the phone.
‘Her last words were, “I love you, babe. I’m really glad we had this conversation. Keep in touch,”‘ Samantha recalled. ‘And she couldn’t – she got busy. I tried. But I think she just got really busy.’
Samantha, reportedly shedding tears by this point, added: ‘I hope now that she knows I was there. I should’ve really reached out more… but I’m proud of her.’
In the same interview, Samantha rather preposterously denied that the title of her forthcoming memoir, The Diary of Princess Pushy’s Sister, was intended as an insult to her sister, saying she intended to prove that Meghan was the ‘opposite’ of that and chose the title to make a mockery of ‘social perceptions and labels.’
For those wondering what had caused such a venomous rift between two siblings who admitted they had seen little of each other, the explanation seemed to be principally rooted in money. And specifically, their father’s decision to pay for Markle to go to private schools after he won $750,000 in the California State Lottery in 1990.
Samantha admitted that some of their conversations about how Meghan could now repay her father’s investment by helping him financially, he was living near Rosarito in Mexico at the time, may have antagonized her sister.
‘There was just a time when — and it’s funny — we were on the phone,’ Samantha recalled before the wedding. ‘It was probably not my place to say but I was just saying, “Hey, help Dad with some of that money for school now you’re making a lot of money.” I think at that time she wasn’t that pleased about what I had to say.’
When Samantha saw the dress Meghan wore for her engagement portraits with Prince Harry, she commented: ‘If you can spend $75,000 on a dress, you can spend $75,000 on your dad.’
Hostilities inevitably ratcheted up still further after the royal wedding passed without an invitation for Samantha, and Meghan was freed up in what she could say after the couple officially broke away from the Royal Family.
In the Sussexes’ controversial interview with Oprah Winfrey in March 2021, she said she had essentially been raised as an only child and saw Samantha no more than a handful of times.
In the Netflix docuseries Harry & Meghan the following year, Samantha’s daughter, 37-year-old Ashleigh Hale, complicated the family picture further by defending her aunt.
In the Sussexes’ interview with Oprah Winfrey in March 2021, Meghan said she had essentially been raised as an only child and saw Samantha no more than a handful of times
When Samantha saw the dress Meghan wore for her engagement portraits with Prince Harry, she commented: ‘If you can spend $75,000 on a dress, you can spend $75,000 on your dad’
Both Ashleigh and Meghan said they had a sister relationship, the latter adding that she didn’t even know about her niece’s existence until she was in her twenties. Ashleigh said Samantha had disappeared from her life when she was six and they didn’t ‘reconnect’ until 2007.
The duchess said in the documentary that palace advisors urged her not to invite her niece to her wedding as it would involve having to explain why Samantha hadn’t been invited, too.
After it was revealed in the duchess’s lawsuit against the Daily Mail that she had shared information about Samantha losing custody of her children to her sympathetic biographers, Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand, for the book Finding Freedom, Samantha sued her for defamation in 2022.
The latter claimed that her sister had advanced a narrative that Samantha had sold false stories about her childhood to the media. A US judge permanently dismissed the $75,000 suit last year. The sisters continue to be estranged and Samantha’s defense of their father, again contradicting Meghan’s position, is hardly likely to change that situation.
Thomas Markle Jr, an ex-window fitter, has been less public than Samantha in his feuding with the duchess. Although he initially described news of her engagement to Prince Harry in 2017 as ‘wonderful…I couldn’t be happier for her,’ his attitude changed as the nuptials approached and Meghan continued to keep her American family at arm’s length.
Shortly before the wedding, he wrote Prince Harry a letter, warning that the marriage would be ‘the biggest mistake in royal wedding history.’ Like Samantha, he later questioned why the Sussexes invited outsiders such as the Middletons, the family of the Princess of Wales, to the wedding but excluded Meghan’s own relations.
And, like Samantha, he too made clear he was upset about how much money their father had spent on Meghan’s education.
In 2019, Thomas Jr, who at 60 is 15 years older than Meghan, made the bizarre claim that the royal wedding had left him homeless even as he called for reconciliation within the family.
‘I have been a bad son and a bad brother to Meg,’ he said, speaking from his home in Oregon. ‘I just want to put things right before it’s too late.’
However, he couldn’t resist raising the subject of money, adding: ‘But what she needs to remember is that she is only in Buckingham Palace with Harry because of her dad. He paid for her education and fancy clothes. He helped her become the exceptional woman she is and I beg her to recognize that.’
If he really thought that would encourage her to relent, he was mistaken.
Like Samantha, Thomas Jr has also been accused by Meghan’s supporters of monetizing his connection to her – in his case when he appeared on the reality TV series Big Brother VIP in 2021. He revealed among other things that his father didn’t approve of Prince Harry and that he resented his sister’s reported claims that she barely knew her half-siblings.
‘That kind of pissed me off and she knows damn well we had a great time growing up together,’ he said as he explained why he’d urged Prince Harry not to marry her.
He also said he didn’t quite believe that his half-sister became suicidal while in the Royal Family and didn’t receive help from the palace.
As for their father, Thomas Markle Sr, now 82, a retired TV lighting director and the man at the center of this toxic family feud, he now finds himself in the odd position of being defended by one of the children who were his erstwhile champions – Samantha – and condemned by the other – Thomas Jr.
In the process, a new rift has opened in a clan that is hardly short of them.
Thomas Jr says he has reported his father to the police and FBI after finding a huge trove of child pornography at his home in the Philippines. It was confirmed today that the Department of Justice (DOJ) in the Philippines is investigating reports involving ‘an American national in his 80s’ who is accused of leaving child abuse videos and photos in his home in Cebu province.
‘I have supported, cared for him and helped him for years – but that stops now,’ he told The Sun. ‘I won’t speak to my father ever again unless I’m called to give evidence against him.’
Samantha, meanwhile, has accused her ‘disgusting’ brother of fabricating evidence “to destroy our dad” after he allegedly cut him off financially when Thomas Jr ran out of money in the Philippines. Markle Sr has vehemently denied the charges.
As for Thomas Sr’s turbulent relationship with his younger daughter, after Meghan, 45, announced Friday that the British police warned her about pedophilia-related allegations against her father back in 2018, sources close to the duchess have said people will ‘finally understand’ why she distanced herself from him for so many years.
Meghan’s father, Thomas Markle Sr, didn’t go to his daughter’s wedding – officially because he was recovering from a heart attack and resulting emergency surgery
Apart from the bride’s mother, Doria Ragland, 70, it was only too noticeable that none of the Markles were at the wedding, which was instead packed celebrities
After Meghan announced Friday that the British police warned her about pedophilia-related allegations against her father back in 2018, sources close to the duchess have said people will ‘finally understand’ why she distanced herself from him for so many years
However, around the time of the Sussexes’ wedding in May 2018, the message from their camp was that they wanted him to attend the ceremony and accompany the bride down the aisle. ‘Sadly, my father will not be attending our wedding,’ she said in a statement put out by Buckingham Palace announcing the news two days before they married.
Meghan went on: ‘I have always cared for my father and hope he can be given the space he needs to focus on his health.’
Distinctly leaving the impression that his absence from the nuptials hadn’t been his idea, Markle was soon expressing his unhappiness that he hadn’t been there. ‘I’m a footnote to the greatest moment in history rather than the dad who walked his daughter down the aisle,’ he told British TV the following month. ‘That upsets me somewhat.’
And in an interview with the Daily Mail that July – two months after the wedding – Markle said his daughter had cut all ties with him, and that phone numbers he had for her had been disconnected.
‘I’m really hurt that she’s cut me off completely,’ he said, saying he now had no way to reach her. ‘I used to have a phone number and text number for her personal aides at the Palace, but after I said a few critical words about the Royal Family changing Meghan, they cut me off.’
Given reports by USA Today that the police told the duchess about the allegations against her father in the ‘summer’ of that year, that warning might explain the sudden decision to disconnect from him.
‘I’ve lost my father,’ she told Oprah three years later.
Thomas Sr recovering in a hospital bed after surgery in the Philippines last December
‘The more high profile she became, she never mentioned me,’ said Samantha Markle
‘I’ve lost my father,’ Meghan told Oprah Winfrey in an interview carried out back in 2021
In the interview, she complained that her father had lied to her in denying he had talked to newspapers.
‘I look at [her son] Archie, I think about this child, and I genuinely can’t imagine doing anything to intentionally cause pain to my child. I can’t imagine it,’ she said. ‘So it’s hard for me to reconcile that.’
Was she really struggling to reconcile the letter she’d got from the police? Oddly, given his wife says she would have already known the allegations against her father for four years by then, Prince Harry told the 2022 Netflix documentary that, while she had lost her father, he deserved the blame because ‘if Meg wasn’t with me, then her dad would still be her dad.’
A Met spokesman said: ‘We are aware of media reports that officers from the Met’s Royalty and Specialist Protection Command were involved in the passing on of a letter in 2018. We are undertaking enquiries internally in an effort to confirm this.’
The Daily Mail understands that the Met has not previously investigated Thomas Sr and is not currently probing him.
In 2023, Markle branded Meghan ‘cruel’ for not allowing him to meet his grandchildren, Archie and Lilibet, telling the UK TV show Good Morning Britain: ‘There’s no excuse.’
He added: ‘I’m heartbroken. I am very upset. This is a cruel thing to do to a grandparent, to deny the right to see a grandchild.’
And ironically given the latest allegations against him, Markle complained: ‘The other thing is I’ve done nothing wrong. There’s nothing that points to say I’m a bad guy.’
When in December 2025, Thomas Markle Sr’s health worsened and he suffered a stroke and, after developing a blood clot, he had to have a leg amputated.
He appealed for her to visit him in hospital in the Philippines although her response remains unknown. Her spokesman said the duchess got in touch with him although he denied it.
Given the latest shocking developments, it seems even more unlikely that father and ‘daddy’s girl’ will ever reconcile.
