Meghan and her father are now estranged (Picture: Backgrid/Ruba)
Meghan Markle’s half-brother Thomas Markle Jr has reacted to Prince Harry saying that she ‘doesn’t have a father’, describing the remark as ‘horrible’.
This week, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex released the first volume of their bombshell Netflix documentary, revealing on the series the first messages they exchanged when they started dating and opening up on the ‘racism’ Meghan suffered from the press.
At one point, Harry, 38, spoke about the breakdown of the relationship between Meghan, 41, and her father Thomas Markle Sr, 78, with the pair now being estranged.
‘Of course, it’s incredibly sad what happened,’ Harry said to the camera. ‘She had a father before this, and now she doesn’t have a father.’
The duke continued: ‘And I shouldered that. If Meg wasn’t with me, then her dad would still be her dad.’
It previously emerged that Markle Sr, who used to work as a lighting director, accepted payments from the paparazzi to stage photos before the royal wedding in 2018.
Harry and Meghan have opened up like never before in their new series (Picture: Netflix)
During an appearance on Piers Morgan Uncensored on TalkTV, Markle Jr, 56, expressed his opinion on Harry’s statement about Meghan ‘not having a father’.
‘I think it’s horrible. The documentary is so far off on so many different levels. So many, it’s just, it’s really a little bit disturbing,’ he said to Piers Morgan, who’s a vocal critic of Meghan and Harry.
‘Saying that, you know, she doesn’t have a family and she doesn’t have a father and then Harry saying that, you know, she has no father now – that’s just ridiculous.’
When the reports first came out of Markle Sr staging paparazzi pictures, Meghan said that her father initially denied doing so when she asked him about it on the phone.
Meghan said that she didn’t believe her father, and claimed that she only found out he wouldn’t be attending her wedding through a report in TMZ.
A message apparently sent by Meghan to her father read: ‘Please can I ask that you stop talking to any press… you haven’t returned any of our 20+ calls since we all spoke on Saturday morning; which only adds to the hurt you’ve been causing. We aren’t angry but we do really need to speak to u. Love M and H.’
Speaking on the documentary, Meghan’s mother Doria Ragland said: ‘I was absolutely stunned that Tom would become part of this circus.
‘I felt sad that the media would run with this. That he would capitalise. Certainly as a parent, that’s not what you do. That’s not parenting.’
Piers Morgan Uncensored airs weekdays from 8pm on TalkTV.
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‘She had a father before this, and now she doesn’t have a father,’ Prince Harry said.
