Meghan Markle Is Preparing To Fight for Her Childhood

Meghan Markle is preparing for what she hopes will be the final showdown in a libel lawsuit brought by her sister which strikes to the core of her narrative about her childhood.

The Duchess of Sussex's lawyer, Michael Kump, vowed in March 2022 to give the defamation claim "the minimum attention necessary, which is all it deserves."

More than a year later and Meghan's team are preparing to go back into the court to get the case thrown out for what would be the third and final time if they are successful.

The two sides have requested a court date to thrash out their differences and it will be a must win clash for Samantha.

At its heart, Samantha is attempting to overturn Meghan's claim they barely know each other as well as what her lawyers describe as a "rags to riches" tale about an underprivileged upbringing in which she had the salad bar at Sizzler because that was all they could afford.

Samantha argues that she was highly involved in Meghan's upbringing, however, the two sisters are not the only protagonists in this account.

Also crucial to the picture she paints are their father Thomas Markle and most controversially of all, Meghan's mother Doria Ragland.

Doria Ragland's Role in Meghan's Childhood

Meghan told her Netflix docuseries Harry & Meghan: "I was with my mom during the week and with my dad on the weekends. And my dad lived alone, he had two adult children who had moved out of his house."

Samantha says the statement, in Episode 2, was defamatory and her lawyers said in a court filing seen by Newsweek: "In reality, Meghan lived with her father full-time and visited her mother on some weekends.

"When Meghan was in Jr. High School, Samantha lived on the property and was always home when Meghan came home from school.

"Often, she drove Meghan to school or accompanied her father when her father drove. After school Samantha and Thomas Markle would help her with her homework, and he took Meghan shopping on weekends.

"During their childhood, Meghan was very close to her older sister despite their 17-year difference in age. Samantha was more than a model to follow, she was also someone who regularly went with Thomas Markle as he drove Meghan to and from school and acting classes.

"Among many other things, Samantha helped Meghan with homework, took her on shopping trips to the local mall, and overall had a good to wonderful relationship with her younger sister."

Meghan has always been very protective of Doria, who has also played a key role in raising the Sussex children both in the days after their son Archie was born in Britain and during their new life in America.

Meanwhile, the duchess and her father are estranged following his secret collusion with the paparazzi in the days before the royal wedding, in May 2018.

It all means that the emotional stakes of any trial would be exceptionally high for Meghan if Samantha were to win the right to take her claims that far.

Thomas Markle and Meghan's Trips to Sizzler

When Samantha first filed the case, she referenced Meghan's account of growing up with financial hardship, including as described in a letter to Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer as part of the Paid Leave for All campaign.

In 2021, Meghan wrote: "I grew up on the $4.99 salad bar at Sizzler—it may have cost less back then (to be honest, I can't remember)—but what I do remember was the feeling: I knew how hard my parents worked to afford this because even at five bucks, eating out was something special, and I felt lucky.

"And as a Girl Scout, when my troop would go to dinner for a big celebration, it was back to that same salad bar or The Old Spaghetti Factory—because that's what those families could afford to do too.

"I started working (at the local frozen yogurt shop) at the age of 13. I waited tables, babysat, and piecemealed jobs together to cover odds and ends.

"I worked all my life and saved when and where I could—but even that was a luxury—because usually it was about making ends meet and having enough to pay my rent and put gas in my car."

Samantha's original complaint read: "Meghan falsely claimed that: (a) she
essentially raised herself from virtual poverty; (b) she was forced from the age of 13 to work in a series of low-paying jobs to 'make ends meet'; (c) she worked to pay for her Northwestern college education; (d) she drove an old car with malfunctioning doors and had to enter and exit via the trunk; (e) she had no siblings and virtually no contact with her family; (f) her family could only afford the $4.99 salad bar at Sizzlers."

Samantha's case has already been rejected twice, and those specific references were lost in the process but she still maintains that Meghan has been pushing a "false rags-to-riches" narrative.

An April court filing read: "The [Netflix] Series is disparaging and hurtful on its own; and the statements when taken individually or collectively, weave a narrative of lies that Meghan hides behind in an attempt to bolster her own false 'rags-to-riches' while actually discrediting her sister calling her a liar and 'fame seeker,' and far worse, going so far as to publish statements which imply or state that Samantha is a racist."

And if the case were to come to trial, it is possible the original line of argument might appear in evidence since their father Thomas Markle at one stage offered to testify on Samantha's behalf.

He has previously hit back at Meghan's account, telling The Sun: "We'd do the best restaurants in town and we'd do Sizzler because it was convenient.

"We never had to rub our pennies together and just have the salad bar. She had the salad bar—but she had a meal as well."

The Legal Dimensions

Meghan's lawyer, Michael Kump, was highly dismissive of the case when it was filed in March 2022: "This baseless and absurd lawsuit is just a continuation of a pattern of disturbing behavior. We will give it the minimum attention necessary, which is all it deserves."

However, fighting the lawsuit has definitely required some attention and Meghan brought in re-enforcements in the form of a Florida-based lawyer to the stars, Ronnie Bitman, who also represented Justin Bieber, the Estate of Michael Jackson, Kim, Khloe, and Kourtney Kardashian and Lindsay Lohan.

Meghan's team will go into bat knowing Samantha's side failed to convince the judge before and if they fail again they will not get another opportunity with this claim.

However, the stakes are high since, if Samantha wins the right to a trial, the result will be a media feeding frenzy over the way Meghan has told her own life story.

Bitman wrote in a court filing: "Three times Plaintiff has tried—and failed—to turn a personal grudge into a federal case for reasons unbeknownst to Meghan, relying solely on non-actionable opinions and third-party statements. This action should be dismissed with prejudice."

Jack Royston is chief royal correspondent for Newsweek, based in London. You can find him on Twitter at @jack_royston and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.

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