Meghan Markleβs half-sister Samantha is big mad at her former royal sis, and sheβs taking her beef to court. According to Samantha Markleβs legal team, they have a βviable defamation caseβ against the Duchess of Sussex based on comments she made during the now-infamous tell-all interview with Oprah Winfrey back in March 2021.
Samantha Markle is taking issue with Meghan for telling Oprah that she grew up as an only child. βI donβt feel comfortable talking about people that I really donβt know,β Meghan told Oprah in the interview. βI grew up as an only child, which everyone who grew up around me knows, and I wished I had siblings. I would have loved to have had siblings.β Meghanβs legal team insists that her comments to Oprah were βsubjectiveβ and not meant to be βobjective fact.β For the record, Meghan also has a half-brother, Thomas Markle Jr.
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But in an interview with Newsweek, Jamie Sasson of Samantha Markleβs legal team said they are not backing down and feel they have a strong case. βOur position on this is that we still feel confident this is a viable defamation claim, and Mrs. Markle [Meghan] is attempting to spin this around regarding the Oprah show stating that this is βsubjectiveβ thinking that she was an βonly child,β but that is not subjective. Either youβre an only child, or youβre not,β he said.
Samantha is also taking issue with Meghanβs comments to Oprah that Samantha changed her name from Grant to Markle when Meghanβs relationship with Harry went public. Samantha Markleβs lawyers say Meghanβs comments have hurt their client, and caused her to be perceived as a liar in the court of public opinion. βWe clearly put into our complaint the damage that was caused to Samantha Markle by her being labeled a liar. She now faces online comments of βMeghanβs lying sisterβ and she never lied about anything,β Jamie Sasson said.
But Meghanβs lawyers insist Samanthaβs claims are weak and clapped back in a July 25 filing to have the lawsuit dismissed. The team wrote, in part: βThere is nothing defamatory about that statementβsaying that someone changed their name to be associated with another is not in and of itself defamatory in any way.β Both sides are awaiting a judgeβs ruling on the case.
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