Samantha Markle spoke to Newstalk ZB’s Heather du Plessis-Allan in her first NZ interview since the bombshell Oprah interview and disputed claims made by her sister. Audio / Newstalk ZB
OPINION:
Ah, can you smell that? Not the hint of autumn in the air but the irony: The irony that today as Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex finds herself embroiled in a new legal fight, this time, she's the one being sued, having been accused in court documents of lying about her family.
Over the course of the last two and a half years, Meghan and her husband Prince Harry have launched a flurry of lawsuits (including against the Mail on Sunday, The Sun, The Mirror, US paparazzi agencies X17 and Splash).
The couple have also called in the lawyers over media coverage about their choice to co-opt the Queen's nickname for their daughter and the Mail on Sunday's report about his battle with the UK's Home Office over the removal of his official police protection.
One would imagine, by this stage, that lawyers' bills and conference calls with rooms full of humourless solicitors are a pretty regular feature of life inside their $21 million Montecito pile, the Chateau of Riven Rock.
Over the weekend, the news broke that Meghan's older half-sister Samantha Markle, and permanent thorn in her side, has filed a defamation suit of her own against her titled sibling in a Florida court, accusing Meghan of "false and malicious lies" and of propagating a "false narrative and fairytale life story".
In court documents, lawyers for Samantha accused the former Suits star of making "demonstrably false and malicious statements" to a "worldwide audience, including roughly 50 million people in 17 countries who watched the Oprah Winfrey interview with the Defendant, Meghan Markle, and her husband, Prince Harry of England."
(It's not a great start for Samantha's legal contingent here given they managed to get his title wrong straight out of the gate. Netflix's least productive hire, so far anyway, is actually officially called Prince Henry of Wales.)
The filing also charges the Duchess of an "orchestrated 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".
A lawyer for Meghan named Michael Kump, from the firm Kinsella Weitzman Iser Kump Holley, has labelled the suit "baseless and absurd," according to The Telegraph, and that "we will give it the minimum attention necessary, which is all it deserves".
Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex attend the 2021 Salute To Freedom Gala at Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum on November 10, 2021 in New York City. Photo / Getty Images
But before we write this all off as just another attention-seeking eruption in the long and disreputable tale of la famille Markle, a bunch who have a truly remarkable ability to create tabloid dramahhhh, hold your legal horses.
If the case proceeds, Meghan could potentially be interviewed under oath and it's at this point the alarm bells should be ringing not only in Montecito but London too.
Samantha, according to a new report, is planning to possibly "forensically challenge" the claims raised during the royal couple's bombshell prime-time TV interview last year.
"Nothing is off-limits if the Duchess is deposed," a source close to the case has told the Mirror. "Samantha's lawsuit focuses heavily on claims made by the Duchess when she spoke to Oprah.
"They include details on how little Meghan says she knew her half-siblings, but also about the life she had when growing up.
"Samantha, who shares the same dad with Meghan, does not recognise much of what the Duchess said and wants to challenge it all by making her sister sit for a deposition.
"Everything will be forensically challenged. For sure, Samantha hopes Meghan will be tested on all aspects of the Oprah programme, including claims she made about the royals."
Prince Harry, from left, and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, during an interview with Oprah Winfrey. Photo / AP
It's those last three words that we really need to pay attention to here – "about the royals." Because what this means is that Meghan could be compelled to answer questions relating to the devastating claims she made to Oprah about her time inside royal captivity, including being quizzed about royal racism.
Duh duh DUH.
And just like that, this lawsuit might have achieved what has for years now seemed unthinkable: uniting the Sussexes and the house of Windsor.
Harry and Meghan, despite the Duchess having been the one to inform the world that there had been "concerns and conversations about how dark" their unborn baby's skin colour might be during her first pregnancy, have zero intention of naming names.
"I think that would be very damaging to them," she told Oprah when the TV titan asked her if she was going to identify who was involved in those "conversations".
Harry, meanwhile, doing his best impression of a red-headed thundercloud, said "That conversation I'm never going to share."
Despite the PR fisticuffs that have been dragging on for years now, nobody with a title and a direct personal interest in the survival of the monarchy on either side of the Atlantic would be happy about this possibility.
It goes without saying that dredging up claims of racism is quite possibly the very, very last thing that Buckingham Palace would want right now, possibly only surpassed by the prospect of Prince Andrew deciding to launch his own podcast, recorded in the Royal Lodge's downstairs loo, to clear his name. (Yakking with the Yorks anyone?)
With the royal family having shelled out about $24 million to prevent Andrew's civil sex abuse case from ending up in court, with the disgraced royal settling with his accuser Virginia Giuffre last month, the prospect of a fresh sensational court case in the lead up to the Queen's Platinum Jubilee celebrations in June is horror scenario.
Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, appear at Global Citizen Live in Central Park on September 25, 2021, in New York. Photo / Getty Images
After the better part of three years of a nearly continuous stream of controversies, PR debacles and bona fide disasters, the royal family is in dire need of getting some positive runs on the board with the public and the press. For courtiers and the Queen, dirty laundry, or even allegations of dirty laundry, need to stay firmly locked away and out of sight, at least until all the Platinum Jubilee bunting is packed away.
The same goes for Meghan too here. Samantha has accused her royal half-sister of having "falsely claimed" that she had grown up in "virtual poverty".
Last year, in a letter sent to top Washington leaders pushing for paid parental leave, the Duchess of Sussex wrote, "I grew up on the $4.99 salad bar at Sizzler … I knew how hard my parents worked to afford this because even at five bucks, eating out was something special."
She also said: "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."
However, Samantha's court documents allege that Meghan "was not forced at the age of 13 to work in low-paying jobs to make ends meet; Defendant attended elite and expensive private schools and dance and acting classes in Los Angeles paid for by her Father" and that Thomas Markle was a "was a highly successful television lighting director" who "paid for all of Defendant's college education at Northwestern, including tuition, rent and living expenses."
At stake here for Meghan is her credibility. Late last year she had to apologise to the court in London for forgetting she had sent a detailed email to her then-press secretary before he met with the authors of the biography Finding Freedom. Or, during the Oprah interview, Meghan said the couple had "got married" three days before their wedding only for the Archbishop of Canterbury appearing to contradict.
The question here is, could Meghan afford to potentially have holes poked in her narrative about her upbringing?
Here's hoping Her Majesty has some change left over from helping Andrew with this legal mess. She might have to make another generous bank transfer to get the royal family out of another legal pickle again soon.
• Daniela Elser is a royal expert and a writer with more than 15 years experience working with Australia's leading media titles.
