Over the summer, a new biography about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's departure from the Royal Family, titled Finding Freedom, was published. While the Duke and Duchess of Sussex denied rumors suggesting they collaborated with the book's authors, court documents from Meghan's ongoing lawsuit against Associated Newspapers reveal she did allow a friend to share information with the biographers.
Town & Country reports that Meghan’s legal team she was “concerned that her father’s narrative in the media that she had abandoned him and had not even tried to contact him (which was false) would be repeated.” In an effort to stop her father, Meghan reportedly allowed her friend to pass along the information that she had, in fact, made efforts to contact him, including via the letter that was eventually published by the Daily Mail.
“Neither the Claimant nor her husband co-operated with the authors to put out 'their version of events' by means of the Book, nor did they meet with the authors, nor were they interviewed for the purposes of the Book, whether formally or informally,” the filing continued.
Meghan's lawyers also added that the Duchess made multiple efforts to contact her father. "She had tried to call him, and text him, and had even written a letter to him to try to persuade him to stop dealing with the media; and he had written back to her. Accordingly, she indicated to a person whom she knew had already been approached by the authors that the true position as above (which that person and several others who knew the Claimant already knew) could be communicated to the authors to prevent any further misrepresentation," her lawyers explained. "She does not know to what extent or in what terms this one item of information concerning her communications with her father was shared with the authors.”
Her legal team also commented on Associated Newspapers latest claim—that Meghan had help from palace aides when writing her letter—in their filing. Her lawyers deny that the letter was part of a “media strategy” and claims suggesting otherwise are “misconceived and offensive.” The filing does admit, however, that Meghan wrote to her father “in an attempt to get him to stop talking to the press” after seeking advice from “two members of the Royal Family.”
“Once it had been decided that the Claimant would write to her father, the Claimant informed Mr Knauf. Mr Knauf was not only a trusted advisor, who had spoken to the Claimant’s father repeatedly, particularly in the lead-up to the wedding, and was aware of the state of his health, but he was also responsible for reporting (as was required by palace protocol) the fact that the Claimant was going to write to her father to more senior people in the Royal households, all of whom had to be kept apprised of any public-facing issues (the media spectacle surrounding Mr Markle being one such issue),” the filing continues.
According to her lawyers, Meghan “shared a draft of that Draft with her husband and Mr Knauf for support, as this was a deeply painful process that they lived through with her” but that, ultimately, “this was a personal letter from father to daughter.”
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