Meghan’s father Thomas Markle reveals her sweet cards, proof he did go to her first wedding (but sai
They are touching, heartfelt notes in elegant handwriting, sent from a devoted daughter to the ‘Daddy’ she clearly adores. In one she vows: ‘All I want to do is make you proud… and I promise, no matter what, I’ll do it.’ In another she thanks her father for taking ‘the best care of me’ and adds: ‘I love you to no end’, Daily Mail reported.
For Thomas Markle, estranged father of the Duchess of Sussex, the treasured words are a painful reminder of the bitter rift and ‘wall of silence’ between him, his pregnant daughter and Prince Harry, the son-in-law he has never met.
While Meghan and Harry will spend their Christmas at Sandringham with the Queen, Prince William and Kate, the upcoming festive season fills Mr Markle with dread as it will be his first Christmas without a card, call or visit from his beloved youngest child.
In an exclusive interview, Thomas Markle revealed this photo of himself with his daughter at her first wedding - banishing rumours he didn't attend
‘I have been frozen out and I can’t stay silent,’ he said last night. ‘I have made dozens of attempts to reach my daughter via text and letters, but she and Harry have put up a wall of silence. They have done what they once told me not to do – they are believing everything negative that has been written about me. So I am reaching out to them, once again, to try to correct the lies and get the truth out there.
‘Everyone says, why don’t I just shut the f*** up? That Meghan can’t speak to me because I’ll give away secrets. But that’s bull****. I’ve been accused of every terrible thing you can think of. In one magazine they had an awful story about Prince Charles right beside one about me. But no one is shunning Prince Charles.’
This is just his fourth interview since the fall-out with Harry and Meghan after he staged paparazzi pictures shortly before the couple’s wedding in May and then suffered two heart attacks, preventing him walking his daughter down the aisle at St George’s Chapel, Windsor.
Today, in a wide-ranging interview with The Mail on Sunday, Mr Markle, for the first time, categorically rejects some of the most ‘grievous’ lies against him and produces evidence in the form of photographs, medical statements and even a faded plane ticket that he says proves he is telling the truth:
THE LIE: He ‘faked’ his heart attacks out of embarrassment over the staged paparazzi pictures to give himself an excuse not to travel to Britain for the wedding.
FACT: He produces a stack of private medical bills, a hospital discharge letter citing ‘heart failure’ and a list of medications prescribed to prevent future heart attacks: ‘I had two heart attacks, the second of which the doctor called a widow-maker and nearly killed me.’
THE LIE: He failed to attend Meghan’s first wedding in 2011 to film producer Trevor Engelson at the beach resort of Ocho Rios, Jamaica.
FACT: Mr Markle produces a picture of himself and Meghan, taken just moments before he walked her down the beach alongside ex-wife Doria, the only member of Meghan’s family to attend the Royal Wedding. He even kept his business-class plane ticket to the nuptials.
Thomas Markle admits to ‘stupid mistakes’, including posing for paparazzi pictures before the Royal Wedding, but says that being frozen out by Meghan and Harry ‘is a punishment which does not fit the crime’. He has apologised repeatedly for the pictures, which included one of him being measured for a wedding suit.
‘I was a fool. I was convinced to do these pictures to change my image. I was sick of seeing schlubby pictures of me buying beer which wasn’t even for me,’ he says.
‘I apologised to Harry on the phone and all he said was, “If you’d listened to me, none of this would have happened.” I did a few things wrong, said a few things I should not have said. But some of the Royals have done far worse things… There are convicts in prisons who have murdered and committed all kinds of horrible crimes, and their daughters still visit them.’
THE LIE: Meghan and her father were never that close.
FACT: Mr Markle has ‘hundreds’ of notes and cards from Meghan, who lived solely with him from the age of 11 until she went to university: ‘People are trying to rewrite history. Meghan and I were as close as a father and daughter could be right up until her wedding to Harry. Then it all fell apart.’
THE LIE: Mr Markle ‘sold out’ his daughter and has been quoted giving his opinion on recent negative stories about her, including that she brought Kate to tears in a row over the bridesmaid outfit for Princess Charlotte at Meghan’s wedding.
FACT: ‘I’m not selling stories. People make things up and my daughter and her husband believe the lies, the one thing they told me never to do. They think I’m giving hundreds of interviews. That’s rubbish. I am not perfect, I made mistakes but my punishment does not fit the crime. Even murderers get visits from their daughters in jail.’
Sitting in a hotel room close to his home in Rosarito, a beach town just across the US-Mexico border, Mr Markle said he has repeatedly reached out to Meghan to try to heal the rift.
‘I have sent several texts. Her number hasn’t changed and they haven’t bounced back,’ he says.
‘I’ve pleaded with her to pick up the phone. I wrote her a two-page letter and sent it by certified mail via her representative in Los Angeles. I asked her why she was believing the lies. I also pointed out the Royals haven’t always been perfectly behaved. I wrote that I’ve never played pool naked, nor have I dressed up as a Nazi [a reference to Harry’s infamous pictures in Las Vegas in 2012 and the time that he wore a crude imitation of a Nazi uniform, including a swastika armband, in 2005].
‘I even hand-delivered a letter to Doria asking her why our daughter won’t speak to me.
‘Everything has been met with a stony silence. Their silence means people continue to attack me and write lies about me.’
Mr Markle says he has been surprised by a spate of recent negative stories about his daughter that portray her as a petulant diva.
One claimed she reduced a staff member to tears with her 5am demands and another said she wanted to spray air freshener around ‘musty’ St George’s Chapel – a request rejected by the Queen.
Perhaps the most damaging claim concerns an alleged rift between Meghan and Kate, who is said to have been ‘reduced to tears’ by Meghan’s demands over Princess Charlotte’s bridesmaid gown and who later, allegedly, reprimanded Meghan for ‘berating’ a member of her staff.
Kate is said to have told Meghan: ‘That’s unacceptable. They’re my staff and I speak to them.’
Meghan’s father says he is baffled by the reports. ‘I don’t recognise this person,’ he says, shaking his head.
‘The Meghan I know was always sweet, kind, generous. She was always demanding but never rude. I don’t want to say or do anything to hurt my daughter but I worry she is going to hurt herself.’
Read more from Daily Mail