Since becoming a member of the British royal family, everything Meghan Markle does has made headlines.
Her outfits, her hairstyles, her cradling of her baby bump… But among all the usual news we expect about royals, have been endless tabloid stories about her family.
Unlike others related to the royals by marriage – including the Middletons and Meghan’s mother Doria Ragland – her dad Thomas Markle and half-sister Samantha Markle regularly speak to media.
Listen to Mamamia’s daily news podcast The Quicky dive deep on Meghan Markle’s relationship with her dad. You can subscribe here. Post continues after audio.
And this has caused a major rift between them and the Duchess.
Leslie Carroll, author of American Princess: The Love Story of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry spoke to Mamamia’s daily news podcast The Quicky about the strained relationship Meghan has with her family.
Meghan was extremely close with her father growing up – she would spend time with both her parents, as a family, even after they divorced and would visit Thomas, a well-known Hollywood director of photography, on the set of his TV shows after school.
Top Comments
I wonder how dignified and tight lipped Doria would be if her daughter excluded her from her re-written personal narrative and threw her to the wolves?
I think he threw himself to the wolves, ir just listen to his other children and followed their lead, instead of Doria's and Meghan's. She wanted him to walk her diwn the aisle, it was in the program. But he took the money from the tabloids and made a mess of it. This is where some support from the Palace could have been helpful, bringing him over to the UK in the lead up. But really, he made some poor choices, follwing the example of his bitter other children. So sad all round.
Yes, I think a lot of this is on Kensington Palace for not recognising the need to get involved with the Markles well before the engagement. They're not British, they don't get what the expected behaviour of people connected to the royals is. I reckon if they'd given them money and access under some pretty strict legal agreement, they wouldn't have the problems they do now.
Possibly, but paying people to shut up smacks if bribery. Although I have not experienced the extreme pressure of the press hounding me, I still think it would be the right thing to have done just to keep saying No Comment. I didn't need training to think of that strategy. The Markles are just wanting money, and that is sad. I really hope Harry and Meghan can just enjoy being together, and working with the charities they support, and can ignore all the press. It would be terrible if the negativity killed their relationship.
Not to mention, if they got paid once, what’s to stop them extorting more money? Why set the precedent? Honestly, I’m not sure that anything Harry and Meghan did would ever be ‘enough’, especially for the sister.
Eh, I'm sure the royals have slipped money in the right pockets over the centuries to keep things quiet. Less bribery, more providing incentives.
They want money, but they also want a slice of the fame. So getting them on board way back when and organising the odd happy extended family shot would have helped. By - presumably - not engaging with them at all before the relationship moved to super official, the whole thing is just going to keep going on and on and what they say is going to get more and more outrageous to keep the attention. And now Meghan has gone off script by organising these "anonymous friend" articles praising her in the US press, she's lost the high ground. Princess Di played the press game and it didn't work.