Transcription
Meghan Markle writes a letter to her father after an illness that has given her a major dilemma. I'm Jack Royston, Newsweek's chief royal correspondent, and [music] this is Newsweek's Royal Report. [music] Hello listeners and welcome to the show.
Now, Thomas Markle had his leg amputated last week. Uh so major surgery and it followed the doctors finding this like gargantuan 14 inch blood clot um all the way up his thigh. Um but it also put this huge pressure on Megan uh to reach out to her father and end this 7-year impass between them which has existed ever since he staged paparazzi photos for money um in the days leading up to her royal wedding to Prince Harry.
Um so it happened. Megan sent him a letter and it took quite a lot to actually physically get it to him. He's in the Philippines, she's in America. Um, but also because of just the really complicated Marl family mess that is always there. Um, so it was quite a dramatic few days which included a kind of scramble from Megan to ring round hospitals in the Philippines. She didn't know exactly where he was. Um, she was saying she'd emailed him and they were saying to the Daily Mail that she, you know, they'd had no contact from her. And um it all got very very messy and it's caused this big new war of words with Megan and the Daily Mail which is you know obviously an old nemesis. She wants to call them the Daily Fail after she won a lawsuit over a letter she sent to Thomas Markle. So history is repeating itself.
Um but let me tell you, look, I I'll start with the latest on what the two sides are saying, by which I don't actually mean Megan and Thomas. I mean Megan and the Mail because this is where it's come down to. It has basically come down to a turf war between Megan and the Daily Mail over Thomas Markle. The Sussex camp feeling has very much been that the Mail are stopping Megan from getting access to her father. Um, and so this is what a spokesperson for Megan said. Given that a Daily Mail reporter has remained at her father's bedside throughout, broadcasting each interaction and breaching clear ethical boundaries, it's been exceedingly difficult for the Duchess to contact her father privately despite her efforts over the past several days. With the support of reliable and trusted contacts, her correspondence is now safely in his hands.
Now they haven't said who those reliable and trusted contacts are but the embassy the the US consulate in Sebu in the Philippines um where Thomas Marco has been living and where he's in hospital actually went round to his hospital went round to his um his room and saw him and spoke to him directly. So those are probably realistically the trusted contacts she's mentioning.
Now, the Daily Mail hit back at this and a spokesperson for DMG Media um said when Thomas Markle has was taken ill in the Philippines, he contacted Daily Mail journalist Caroline Graham and asked her to travel from LA to be with him. As well as being a journalist, Caroline has been friends with Mr. Markle since 2018. 2018, by the way, is the year that everything fell apart between Thomas and Megan. Is the year that Thomas staged his paparazzi pictures for money. It's also the year that Megan sent a private letter to Thomas Markle begging him to stop talking to the media. The Mail then published it the following year after Thomas Markle gave it to them. So the statement continues, "She has been with Mr. Markle in hospital everyday providing him with care and support. As soon as Mr. Markle gave consent for his contact details, the name of his hospital and his room number to be provided to his daughter's spokesman, Caroline shared them. It is is entirely untrue that each interaction has been broadcast and the suggestion that Caroline has breached ethical boundaries is demonstrably false and vehemently denied."
So there you go. It's all kicked off again between Megan and the Mail. But um they did deliver this letter from Megan to Thomas which no doubt the Daily Mails journalist will have been shown and will have read. Um putting them in an interesting position. Do they publish it, you know, like they did before, knowing that obviously Megan will sue again and they will likely lose? Well, so far, no. It's not been published. But also, you know, both sides have learned the lessons from last time. The male have learned some lessons, too. So, they would know if they were going to publish anything from this letter again not to quote it directly because that would breach copyright because that was one of the grounds on which Megan won last time. She won on grounds of breach of copyright. and they would know that um there is is very very difficult to establish a public interest justification for for printing private material from a letter in Britain. Um so they would have to if they established a public interest justification they felt for doing it they would have to really contain their story down to the absolute bare minimum that served that public interest justification because that was part big part of the reason why they lost last time is because they just published reams of Megan's letter. how, you know, she felt like her heart had been smashed into a million pieces by Thomas going out and doing all these interviews about her.
You know, there are other possibilities here, too. And, um, part of the reason why The Mail on Sunday lost dramatically when Megan sued them last time is because they're a UK publication and she sued them through the UK courts. But, of course, the world is full of many different outlets. And if Thomas wanted to make a quick buck, there are other people he could try to send this letter to, including um news organizations that are based in America. So, he has that option, too. So, it's all very, very interesting.
But the other question sitting beneath it all, is should everybody get really outraged that Megan hasn't gone out to the Philippines to see him? And in all honesty, I don't actually think they should because um and it's a really fascinating relationship actually because Megan was she described herself as a daddy's girl previously. You know, she said her relationship with Thomas was really good. Like she sometimes felt a bit lonely maybe when she was you know her parents divorced. Thomas um had her on the weekends and Doria had her during the week and this is Megan's accounts of it all anyway. And she sometimes felt a bit lonely but you know that's only child syndrome isn't it? Um, and she has said she was brought raised as an only child even though Thomas has these two other children, Tom Markle Jr. and Samantha Markle. Um, so you know, she Megan has basically like given Thomas, you know, the green light, the thumbs up, the kind of parental seal of approval for her childhood. you know, she has not said she had a terrible childhood, that he brought, you know, he was a narcissist when she was a kid and, you know, he's evil and he destroyed her emotionally with his terrible parenting. She hasn't said that. She's given him a kind of, you know, a glowing review [laughter] of of his parenting in her childhood. She he made sure she got to her, you know, dance classes and so on. Helped with the lighting arrangements at her school plays, paid for her university career. Um and she went to a fee paying um private school too uh in in Los Angeles exclusive school, Immaculate Heart.
So from Megan's narrative, it all disintegrated because of this paparazzi thing in the buildup to the wedding that he she, you know, he was out in in Mexico living his life and news organizations were trying to throw money at him and I think he was even bankrupt at that time and he was saying no and turning everything down. But Megan and Harry never went out to see him. I think is a big part of what went wrong with the Thomas Markle situation. He never he still never met Harry and you know Harry did meet Doria and Doria was treated very differently to how Thomas Markle was treated and so he was getting restless and getting restless and getting restless and then I guess in the end he cracked and he was very stressed I think about the prospect of traveling to Britain for the wedding. Um, and so yeah, he staged these pictures and it was humiliating for both sides because the mail on Sunday, same newspaper, um, that he's now kind of had at his bedside, not necessarily the same journalist, but they sent a reporter out to Mexico who pulled CCTV footage from outside an internet cafe where these photos had been taken of Thomas Markle kind of like browsing, I think it was travel agent websites and reading news stories about his daughter. And it, you know, these pictures that appeared in the tabloids were all very suspicious. It looked a lot like they were staged. So the Bay on Sunday went and they just pulled CCTV footage and proved it. They proved that Thomas Markle had staged these pictures with the paps.
But while they were preparing their story, um they had obviously gone to the palace for comment. And Megan had said to Thomas Markle, "Why, you know, did you stage these pictures with the paparazzi? Um what is going on? Are they set up?" And he lied and he said, "No, they're not. I didn't do any of those things." And then the CCTV footage came out and it proved him wrong. And that blew up their relationship and it's he she has never spoken to him since that time. Um but he did he had two heart attacks back then um and had to go to hospital and that was what definitively definitively definitively ruled him out of going to the wedding.
So his son Tom Markle Jr. has given innumerable interviews slacking off Megan. Samantha Markle, Thomas Markle's daughter, trashed her from the minute that her relationship to Prince Harry became public knowledge back in 2016. The public are very accustomed to the reality that the Marle family is a complete mess and have, you know, a real axe to grind against Megan and have humiliated her time and time and time again. And the public know that and they understand it. And even some journalists who are very, you know, really quite relentlessly hostile to Megan have expressed sympathy even now with Megan's decision to not go and go, you know, rush off to the Philippines to see Thomas, which it contrasts with um Harry who, you know, when Charles got cancer, Harry dropped everything and jumped on the next plane to Britain even though he only got 5 minutes with his father and then jumped on the plane and came home again. So he flew halfway around the world to get spend 45 minutes having tea with Charles because Charles had cancer and Megan has not done the same thing for Thomas.
And it comes back to that very simple point. You know, she doesn't trust him. She feels betrayed by him. She feels humiliated by him. But she also feels that if she went out there, she'd be confronted with a Daily Mail journalist when she arrived at his bedside. And I think people in all honesty do understand that and they sympathize with Megan because family can be a total total nightmare. Like this is a very familiar reality to a lot of people. A lot of people have fallen out with members of their family and they may adore portions of their family but then have people who they really struggle to see and they know they can't trust and they know that it won't go well. And um and that's where Megan is.
So, you know, I'm not going to sit here and kind of morally berate Megan for not rushing off to see Thomas in person, but also there is something that I would just observe about this current situation, which is right now there is a bit of an information vacuum around how Megan feels about all of this. And vacuums can be dangerous um because people fill them with their imagination. And so, um, I think that there could be some latitude for Megan to issue some kind of a statement, you know, like talk to like just accept the reality of who Thomas Markle is. Thomas Markle called the journalist to his bedside, right? They didn't invade his hotel room against his wishes um and camp out, you know, in front of it. He invited them and that was his decision and it is his life and he does have the right to do that. and a lot of people will think less of him for doing it, but he does have that right to do it. And so I think Megan just needs to understand that this is who Thomas Markle is now. Um, and she is entitled to find that heartbreakingly sad, but it it is the reality.
And you know, you could even not exactly offer a defense of Thomas, but you know, there are other celebrities whose fathers have done the same thing, betraying their famous celebrity um sons and daughters, uh but who did it all behind closed doors in the background on the quiet without that celebrity ever knowing about it. And so Megan could be in that boat, which would be even worse. Um, but my point is I think it would benefit Megan to start just accepting the reality that conversations with Thomas Markle are going to happen through the media and doing that herself. Like maybe it's a video on Instagram. Um, and obviously that there's a bit of a risk that looks a bit tacky, but she could also explain, you know, in the video like this is my means I have of contacting my father without having to go and, you know, sit side by side with a Daily Mail journalist while I try and have a conversation with him. Um, but that is something that can be played to Thomas Markle in his hotel room, not hotel room, hospital room, sorry. Uh, releasing, you know, a statement that can just be shown to him.
Um, because the thing is about this letter is that it invites people to speculate on what it's going to say. And we all know it's not going to be the really simple message about, you know, oh, I love you so much, Daddy. Please get better. You know, I want I'm It's so distressing to hear that your leg's been amputated. I just want the best for you. Like, it's not going to say that. We know that that's not what it's going to say. It's going to be like the last letter, which is going to have criticisms in it, too, right? I'm sure she will say she will express sympathy for him, but she will also be saying things like, "I can't talk to you when you have a Daily Mail journalist by you all the time and you're being puppeteered." Um, and all the rest of it.
I think it might be better for Megan to not try to have to initiate any kind of meaningful deep emotional connection or bond with Thomas Markle in which you know she tells him these difficult truths but just to accept that the only possible relationship between them now is incredibly surface level and um trivial with it and just you know just start with start there. Start with a really simple, trivial, meaningless, you know, message issued publicly that's devoid of the emotions she really feels under the surface. Cuz that's what you have to do with people sometimes. You have to compartmentalize and just be like, okay, this person, you know, the relationship she had in childhood with her father is dead. Like that's the reality of it. It is gone and it isn't coming back. But Thomas Markle may not have much longer to live. And there is a possibility that she could over time work to create to build from in small steps a form of some kind of surface level relationship that doesn't resolve the past. It doesn't resolve the problems. And yeah, he will probably give some stuff to the Daily Mail, but um as long as she only says things that she's happy to be publicized, then that's that. You know, you can reconcile yourself to these things and make your peace with it. and um just decide not to care.
And that is it goes back to that court case over Megan's private letter because I always thought that court case was a terrible idea. And um you know there was a big argument on over social media, big debate about whether this was unfair on Megan and then when she won people were kind of celebrating this huge victory over the newspaper. But it took so much out of her. And at the end of the day, all the letter said was stuff that, you know, Megan should have been able to say publicly. Like, her heart was smashed into a million pieces when he betrayed her. Well, yeah. Like, obviously, [laughter] what did anybody else do? Anybody else think she enjoyed it? Like, of course, her heart was smashed into a million pieces. All of it was essentially truisms. It was just Megan trying to, you know, almost kind of get her side of the story across to Thomas Markle. And she did say also to her press secretary at the time in emails that in text messages that were made public via the court case that she had written it with the possibility of it being leaked in the media in mind. Um, so she had drafted it in a way where it would get her perspective on the situation across and her feelings about the situation. And you know, the court ruled that it was still a private letter, that she still had every right to keep it privacy and it still conveyed her p private personal emotions about the end of her relationship with her father.
But like some people just like Thomas Markle, you know, he's the what's her name? Caroline Quinn, is it from Selling Sunset? It's like trying to have a relationship with Caroline Quinn. There's no point in trying to make it a normal relationship except it's going to be played out in the media in the public domain. But say something to him so that he doesn't die while you're still in the middle of like a really toxic rift and then make your peace and close the box again. Like simple surface level devoid of real emotion. have some kind of contact with him and then close the box and get on with your life again. But for me, if it was my real father who had given me an upbringing that I didn't think traumatized me, you know, cuz this is very much Megan's position. She doesn't say Thomas traumatized her in childhood, you know, just do the right thing by that memory, right? And have a surface level interaction and then move on again. Uh that is my perspective on it. But I don't judge her morally. Like this is not me saying that she's a terrible person for not doing this. I just think that she will probably feel better about it if she can get to a point where she can leave that relationship just in a slightly better place than it's been so far.
And I think the only other thing really apart from that to say is just, you know, Thomas Marco still hasn't seen, you know, his grandkids Archie and Lily. Probably he's not going to. I think um I think even if Megan were to do what I'm saying, I still don't think they'd get to a point where Megan was willing to introduce her children to him. I kind of think that's fair enough. Like you [laughter] you don't have a right to see your kids. There was one point when there was this ludicrous idea kicking around that Thomas Markle could sue for access to his grandkids almost as though he was a parent. And I just think that, you know, you do have to take responsibility for the decisions you take in life. And Thomas Markle was quite hostile and aggressive with Megan at a certain point. There was a period when he was he was threatening basically to do an an interview with the media every month um about Megan clearly you know inferring it would be a critical interview until she agreed to see him again and if you want to see your grandkids that is not the way to go about it. So I don't I think this whole idea that Thomas has never met his grandchildren you know that is kind of on him really. I don't think that's on Megan. So, I don't think that's a plausible reality, but I do think that she should do something more than she's doing right now. And for her own sake, really, like not necessarily even for Thomas's sake, for her sake.
And that's it for this week's episode of the Royal Report. Be sure to join me every week when I visit the latest royal headlines, embark on some royal deep dives, and riff on all things royal. Until next time, I'm Jack Royston. Thank you for listening, and a curtsy to you all.