He didn’t come when he was wanted.
Now, he’s threatening to come when he’s not wanted.
Thomas Markle, Meghan’s dad, has said he might come to England and hole up in a hotel room in an attempt to see his daughter, who, he claims, has blanked him following her wedding to Prince Harry.
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The new threat is contained in a piece in today’s Sun, the sister paper of the Sun on Sunday, which yesterday ran an extensive interview with Mr. Markle in which he launched a bitter attack on the palace, said his daughter’s vivacious spirit was being crushed by royal life and accused the palace of not returning his calls.
Now, in remarks that appear to have been held back from the main interview, he is threatening to come to the U.K.
He told the Sun: “If I chose in a month, or couple of months, to go to England—I want to see my daughter. I’m thinking about it.
“I don’t care whether she is pissed off at me or not.
“I’m not going to wave flags and make a fool of myself. I’d find a hotel room and try to reach them.”
While Thomas Markle rocking up at Heathrow Airport is not particularly probable (although many media organizations would likely be willing to foot the air ticket and hotel bills) and would certainly not result in a meeting with Meghan, this new intervention by her dad shows that Kensington Palace has done the right thing in cutting him loose.
Despite Mr. Markle’s constant claims that he is not selling out his daughter, it seems entirely within the bounds of possibility that he was paid by the Sun for this sitdown, much as he was by Good Morning Britain and as he was by the paparazzi photographer with whom he worked to stage fake candid pictures. TMZ has said it did not pay Markle for his interviews.
Mr. Markle’s now-well-established habit of talking to the press at the drop of a hat means that it would be completely irresponsible for Meghan or Harry to agree to meet Markle, as it would keep interest in the story alive and give him new material to sell.
The British press has shown its willingness to shame and embarrass Meghan at every opportunity, and it is tragic that her father now appears to be enabling them to do so by denouncing her as heartless in return for money.
Increasingly, one would have to argue that rather than blowing an opportunity to bring him fully on board ahead of the wedding, his non-appearance at Windsor Castle back in May might have been Meghan and Harry’s luckiest escape.
The only way this situation could really be worse would be if Thomas Markle had lots and lots of juicy insights and information to sell to the highest bidder, such as details of interactions with the queen, how Prince Charles was behaving before the wedding or what he saw Meghan say to Kate Middleton over tea.
What is also becoming clear is that Markle, an award-winning Hollywood lighting director, is clearly not quite the delicate media naif he likes to portray himself as in these interviews.
For instance, his main theme appears to be how unfair it is he has been shunned, but then he also admits that Harry and Meghan did call him after the wedding.
“I spoke to Meghan and Harry briefly after the wedding. It was mostly me and Meghan. They were talking about coming to visit me. I spoke to them both and wished them a happy honeymoon. That was the last call.”
He says he is so very sorry that he worked with a photographer to stage, for profit, pictures of himself that massively embarrassed Meghan and Harry, that he knows what a terrible thing it was to do this, but then took several thousand dollars from a British TV show to do an interview in which he discussed their personal lives.
He keeps trying to make out that he is being paid hardly anything for the media interviews he gives and just wants to put his side of the story, but in fact he has made tens of thousands of dollars off of his daughter to date. For a man who was made bankrupt over a $27,000 credit-card debt in 2016, and, according to those bankruptcy filings has an income of just over $4,000 a month, it’s not an insignificant sum of money.
Maybe now we are starting to see why Meghan didn’t reach into her Suits earnings to bail her dad out of the relatively paltry sum, why in a teenage video she said they didn’t get on, and why Harry felt able to say she never really had a family.
If Mr. Markle’s goal, unbelievable as it may seem, is also to embarrass his daughter, well, he undoubtedly will achieve that in the short term.
No doubt Meghan is mortified and upset this morning.
But, after observing the powerful positive chemistry between Meghan and Harry firsthand in Dublin last week, this reporter would suggest it will take more than the ravings of a bitter father to derail Meghan and Harry’s romance and partnership.
Harry is happier than he has ever been, and Meghan is clearly besotted by him.
For all Thomas Markle’s attempts to portray himself as the victim in this new interview with the Sun, it is clear to most observers that his main priority is not his daughter’s well-being.
It is not unreasonable to predict that this outburst will likely represent the final draining away of any compassion for him.
He told yesterday’s Sun on Sunday: “I had a heart attack, doesn’t anybody care? I could actually die soon. Does she want this to be the last thing we’ve said to each other?”
Threatening your children with your own death? It doesn’t get much lower than that.
