Meghan and Harry in a clip from their docuseries. Photo / Netflix
The half-sister of Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, Samantha Markle has responded to the couple’s bombshell Netflix documentary.
After the release of the first three episodes on the streaming platform last night, Meghan’s half-sister slammed the Duchess for being manipulative and has gone as far as to label the docuseries a “flopumentary”.
Appearing on Channel Seven’s Sunrise this morning, the Duchess’s half-sister said: “It is so much rhetoric at this point, and so many lies have been thrown out there, debunked, and yet still there is this repeated need to push this narrative,” Samantha Markle said.
She went on to say the series was “ridiculous” and bordering on “comedy”.
Her daughter, Ashleigh Hale, 37, appeared in the documentary and claimed she was told she was not allowed to attend the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan.
At the time, Meghan told her niece it was because of her strained relationship with Samantha and that she had received guidance from Buckingham Palace regarding the guest list.
Hale said in the documentary: “I think I said I was hurt on some level, but I understood where it was coming from.
“To know that it was because of my biological mother that this relationship, that’s so important to me, was impacted in that way. I feel like because of her, it was taken away. It’s been hard.”
Samantha responded to the claim during her morning show appearance explaining the reason came as a “surprise” to her and blatantly said: “That is not true, that is a lie.”
“I heard from a royal insider who knows, that was up to Meghan, so Meghan lied to my daughter which made my daughter feel begrudging of me.”
Hale and Meghan grew close before she met Harry. The two frequently emailed each other after Meghan’s father Thomas Markle connected them via email.
During the documentary, Hale took a swipe at the royal family admitting that after Meghan married Harry communication “became less and less frequent”. She went on to say she thought Meghan’s relationships “were being managed on some level”.
Samantha also responded to Harry’s comparisons between his wife and his mother.
“Diana was never noted as being a compulsive liar, Diana was never noted as destroying other people, ignoring people through heart attacks, strokes, pandemics,” she said.
Harry compared the two, claiming he “had to quit” royal duties in order to protect Meghan and said he didn’t want history to “repeat itself”.