If there’s one person Meghan Markle and Prince Harry would probably prefer not to deal with, it’s her half-sister Samantha Markle. She’s continued to be a thorn in the royal couple’s side ever since they got married — and now, they are being dragged into her defamation lawsuit.
On Tuesday, Feb. 7, a Florida judge ruled that the Sussexes will be deposed in the case where Samantha is suing Meghan for “defamation and injurious falsehood” after the duo’s interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2021, per CNN. She filed the suit in March 2022 and is seeking over $75,000 in damages because Meghan allegedly made “demonstrably false and malicious statements….to a worldwide audience.” The interview was indeed the TV event of the year, but the focus really wasn’t on Samantha — it was on the royal family.
Meghan tried to stop the deposition proceedings by filing a motion last September, but Judge Charlene Edwards Honeywell ruled that “defendant Markle does not satisfy the high standard required to stay discovery pending the resolution of a dispositive motion.” That ruling probably didn’t please Meghan and Harry very much because they are going to have to respond to what seems like frivolous claims, including why Meghan said she was raised as “an only child.”
Samantha alleges that the Duchess of Sussex was behind “a premeditated campaign” to “defame and destroy her sister’s and her father’s reputation and credibility in order to preserve and promote the false ‘rags-to-royalty’ narrative.” Meghan spoke about her estranged family members in Netflix’s Harry & Meghan documentary, sharing, “My half-sister, who I hadn’t seen for over a decade – and that was only for a day and a half – suddenly, it felt like she was everywhere. I don’t know your middle name. I don’t know your birthday. You’re telling these people that you raised me, and you’ve coined me ‘Princess Pushy.’”