Meghan Markle's father released a letter he received from the Duchess of Sussex a few months after the royal wedding, confirming the accounts of a number of Markle's close friends, who told People magazine Prince Harry's wife had indeed attempted to contact her estranged father after he failed to show up at her wedding last year.
Five of Markle's friends appeared in last week's issue of People magazine, including one of the former actor's Suits co-stars, and refuted Thomas Markle's claims that he has been unable to reach his daughter since she tied the knot with Harry, Duke of Sussex, in May 2018. Meghan Markle's friends, whose identities were not released, told the publication the duchess wrote her father a letter in the summer after her wedding and asked him to stop "victimizing" her in the media.
Thomas Markle responded to the friends' claims in an interview with The Mail on Sunday and released the five-page letter on Sunday. In the handwritten letter, dated August 2018, Meghan Markle addressed a number of issues from her father's staged paparazzi photos ahead of her wedding—which Thomas Markle and Meghan Markle's half-sister Samantha Markle took credit for—to his absence at the royal affair and financial assistance she's attempted to provide him. She also noted that she wasn't aware of his heart attack, which caused him to miss the royal wedding, until reading about it in a tabloid.
"Daddy, it is with a heavy heart that I write this, not understanding why you have chosen to take this path, turning a blind eye to the pain you are causing," Meghan wrote. "Your actions have broken my heart into a million pieces—not simply because you have manufactured such unnecessary and unwarranted pain, but by making the choice to not tell the truth as you are puppeteered in this. Something I will never understand."
"If you love me, as you tell the press you do, please stop. Please allow us to live our lives in peace. Please stop lying, please stop creating so much pain, please stop exploiting my relationship with my husband," she continued. "I realize you are so far down this rabbit hole that you feel (or may feel) there's no way out, but if you take a moment to pause I think you'll see that being able to live with a clear conscience is more valuable than any payment in the world."
The duchess added: "I have only ever loved, protected, and defended you, offering whatever financial support I could, worrying about your health. So the week of the wedding to hear about you having a heart attack through a tabloid was horrifying. I called and texted…I begged you to accept help—we sent someone to your home…and instead of speaking to me to accept this or any help, you stopped answering your phone and chose to only speak to tabloids."
Thomas Markle, whose said in a number of interviews he's had no contact with Markle since she became a royal, told The Mail the letter was "a dagger to the heart." However, he denied Meghan Markle's claims that he hadn't tried to reach her and showed the publication texts to prove that he has tried to contact Meghan Markle and his son-in-law.
Read Meghan Markle's full letter, shared by her father Thomas Markle to The Mail on Sunday HERE.
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