If you love The Daily Beast’s royal coverage, then we hope you’ll enjoy The Royalist, an all-new members-only series for Beast Inside. Become a member to get it in your inbox every Sunday.
Thomas Markle’s decision to make public a letter written to him by his daughter Meghan has left her “at her wit’s end,” with her friends deeply worried about her mental state, according to a report in Vanity Fair.
Prince Harry is said to be “angry” and “upset” with Thomas’ continued outbursts and now even the queen has become involved: “She told them both that the whole thing was becoming a nightmare, and that they should try and sort things out,” according to the friend quoted by VF.com.
ADVERTISEMENT
What exactly “sorting things out” might involve is unclear, but it’s plain that Meghan and Harry’s decision to brief five friends to anonymously give her side of the story to People magazine has been a disastrous strategy, merely giving Thomas a new opportunity to air his grievances, which he did this weekend, showing a five-page letter to the Mail on Sunday in which she begged him to “stop exploiting my relationship with my husband.”
Most of the interview was comprised of fairly vague platitudes about what a nice person she was, but it was the specific claim that Meghan had written her father a letter begging him to stop “victimizing” her through the media that gave Thomas the opportunity to once again exploit his daughter’s trust.
Another claim by the friends that Thomas was able to pick up a phone and call her at any time was proved to be incorrect when Thomas tried to make a call to Meghan in front of the reporter but received a message that the number he had dialed was restricted.
Many commentators were quick to note that by giving the interview to People, Meghan was using her friends to do exactly what she had begged her father not to do—communicating through the media.
Meghan and Harry are now left in an extremely difficult position.
The Telegraph reports that one solution apparently being pondered is to take legal action to stop Markle from publishing the letters, as, under U.K. law, the copyright to a letter rests with its author, not its recipient.
