Meghan Markle is seeking to have the defamation lawsuit filed against her by half-sister dismissed, with her legal team saying that the royal cannot be sued over a claim made during her 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey because the statements were "subjective."
Samantha Markle, Meghan's half-sister on her father's side, first brought a lawsuit against the duchess in Florida in March 2022, with the complaint that the royal had defamed her during her interview with Winfrey and in statements supplied to Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand, authors of the biography Finding Freedom.
The alleged defamatory statements include Meghan's description of herself as an "only child" to Winfrey, that she only met Samantha Markle a "handful of times" and that Markle changed her name back to her maiden name only after Meghan's relationship with Prince Harry became public knowledge.
On Monday, Meghan's legal team filed a statement supporting the request for a motion to dismiss her sister's lawsuit rebutting the alleged examples of defamation.
Most notably, Meghan's representatives dismissed the notion that she could be sued for statements made in her interview with Winfrey about her childhood because her answers were "subjective."
"Plaintiff [Markle] first asserts that she can disprove that Meghan 'grew up as an only child'" the court filing reads. "But this perception is inherently unfalsifiable. It is hard to imagine a more personal and subjective feeling than how one views their own childhood."
The filing continued: "Meghan's response to that question that she 'grew up as an only child' was obviously not meant to be a statement of objective fact that she had no genetic siblings or half-siblings. Rather, it was a textbook example of a subjective statement."
The team also called Markle's complaint that Meghan's saying she had last seen her sister "at least 18, 19 years ago and before that, 10 years before that," defamatory and a "non sequitur."
"The statement at issue concerns interactions as adults," Meghan's team said. "Even if Plaintiff did 'visit the Duchess,' take her 'to school,' or 'help[ ] [her] with her homework' —none of which is true—that would only go to their relationship when Meghan was a young child."
Markle's team had claimed, "the Duchess and Mrs. Markle had frequented [sic] and consistent contact even after [Plaintiff] moved out of the home she once shared with the Duchess."
Also, on Meghan's statement that Markle had reverted to her maiden name after her sister's relationship with Harry became public knowledge, the legal defense said:
"There is nothing defamatory about that statement—saying that someone changed their name to be associated with another is not in-and-of-itself defamatory in any way."
Similarly, Markle's complaints that Meghan defamed her in the biography Finding Freedom were not deemed to be actionable by the royal's lawyers because the duchess was not the author.
Markle accused Meghan of attempting to "slut shame" her when emails between the royal and Kensington Palace aide Jason Knauf were published during a separate legal battle.
An exchange that was allegedly the basis for a briefing of Finding Freedom's authors by Knauf showed the duchess recount, among other claims, that Markle had three children by three different fathers.
"Meghan did not publish any of the allegedly defamatory statements in Finding Freedom," the July 25 filing by her legal team said. "The motion to dismiss as to alleged defamation and injurious falsehood based on those statements should be granted without leave to amend. The claims further fail because the statements themselves are not defamatory or actionable at all."
In conclusion, Meghan's legal team asked that the royal's request for the suit's dismissal "should be granted, as should her request for attorneys' fees, costs and other relief."
The next stages of the case are for a judge to assess Meghan's request and come to a decision. If the dismissal is not granted the lawsuit could go to trial.
No date for the publication of a judge's decision has yet been announced.
Newsweek reached out to legal representatives for Meghan Markle and Samantha Markle for comment.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
James Crawford-Smith is a Newsweek Royal Reporter, based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on the British royal family ... Read more
