Samantha Markle, the estranged older half-sister of the Duchess of Sussex, has claimed that the Meghan’s relationship with Harry “toxic” in a new interview.
Speaking to Australian news programme 7News Spotlight, the 58-year-old, who recently lost a defamation lawsuit against the royal, claimed that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are “unhealthy for each other”.
In a trailer for the show, which is set to air on Sunday 30 April, clips of Harry and Meghan walking together at various points in their relationship are shown alongside a voiceover from Samantha, who said: “They are really unhealthy for each other.”
The video cuts to Samantha being interviewed, as she added: “It’s a toxic relationship.”
She also claimed that Meghan would “still be a waitress if it wasn’t for” their father, Thomas Markle Sr.
Thomas Sr and Meghan’s half-brother, Thomas Markle Jr, also give interviews on the programme, which features unseen home videos of the duchess as a teenager.
At one point in the trailer, Thomas Jr said: “We’re not going to go away. This is going to change everything.”
It comes almost exactly a month after Samantha lost a defamation lawsuit that she filed against Meghan, in which she accused the duchess of spreading “malicious lies” during Meghan and Harry’s 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey and alleged statement to journalists in 2020.
Samantha filed the lawsuit in March 2022 and alleged that Meghan defamed her by claiming they barely had a relationship and that Samantha had been “handsomely paid” by a tabloid to speak against her half-sister.
The case was dismissed by a Florida court, after the judge said that Meghan’s statements were purely her opinion and “not capable of being proved false”.
In 2021, Samantha authored a 330-page memoir titled The Diary of Princess Pushy’s Sister Part 1. In Meghan’s Netflix documentary with Harry, titled Harry & Meghan, the duchess addressed the nickname and said: “I don’t know your name. I don’t know your birthday. You’re telling these people you raised me, and you coined me ‘Princess Pushy’?”
According to 7News Spotlight, the programme will see Thomas Jr and his two eldest children in their “first reunion” since Meghan wed Harry and “iced them out of her life”.
The Markles have shared “treasured childhood videos” of Meghan, including clips of her as her high school’s homecoming queen.
Meghan’s relationship with this side of her family became especially strained after Thomas Sr collaborated with paparazzi to stage several photo shoots before her wedding to Harry in 2018.
The duchess previously revealed that she had begged her father to “stop talking to any press” in a text message exchange. They have not spoken since the wedding. Last May, Thomas Sr was hospitalised after suffering a stroke.
In the new interview, he can be heard asking what he can do to “fix” his relationship with his estranged daughter.
The Independent has contacted the Sussexes’ representative for comment.
