Meghan Markle did not claim to be an only child, her lawyer claims, as her half-sister alleges she was defamed in an Oprah Winfrey interview to back up a “false rags to riches” story, it is reported.
The Duchess of Sussex is being sued by Samantha Markle for "defamation and injurious falsehood" over the bombshell interview she and Harry made with Oprah in 2021, as well as in the Finding Freedom biography.
But Meghan’s lawyer Michael Kump reportedly told a court hearing in his open remarks that they were dealing with her “impressions of her own childhood growing up” which he claimed were not a subject for a legal case.
Samantha Markle is seeking $75,000 (£62,000) in damages in a Florida court over allegations which she claims subjected her to 'humiliation, shame and hatred on a worldwide scale.'
Her lawyer Peter Ticktin told the court that Finding Freedom was "used by the Duchess to affirm this false narrative that she supposedly lived this rags-to-riches thing."
Meghan's legal team is trying to get the case thrown out, and, in a court session conducted via Zoom on Wednesday, a motion to dismiss the case was heard by Florida judge Charlene Edwards Honeywell, the Daily Mail reported.
Mr Kump, who has represented other A-list celebrities including Kardashian and Jenner sisters, said that 10 statements that were alleged to be defamatory by Samantha Markle in Finding Freedom should be dismissed as she didn’t write it.
And he also alleged that Meghan’s comments that were made in the Oprah interview were not defamatory given the context.
He reportedly argued that when she spoke about being an only child she was making a “statement and expression of her own personal and subjective feelings.”
He said: "She never declared: 'I am an only child with no siblings.' All she did was describe her own experiences growing up. Such statements are not readily capable of being proved true or false."
Mr Ticktin in turn argued that Meghan was feeding information to people for the writing of Finding Freedom.
Judge Honeywell will issue a written judgement after the 80 minute long hearing.
She did though reportedly comment that she found it difficult to see how under Florida law Meghan Markle published the defamatory statements in the book.
Should the case advance to the the next stage, Meghan and Harry will have to answer questions by Samantha's lawyers by July this year as part of a deposition.
However, the judge said she was “struggling” to see how Meghan could be accused of being the one responsible for publishing the allegedly defamatory statements, under Florida law.
The book in question, Finding Freedom, was written by Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand.
It is reported that Mr Ticktin even admitted the case was "not the strongest case in the world" - but he hoped to make it stronger.
An attempt to prevent the deposition happening was put forward by Meghan and Harry's legal team in September, before being denied by a judge earlier this month.
Samantha Markle is related to the Duchess of Sussex through their father Thomas, and is the daughter of his ex-wife Roslyn Markle.
