Prince Harry, Meghan Markle: Thomas Markle demands interview with Oprah
Thomas Markle has made a very personal approach to Oprah Winfrey for a right-of-reply interview, as Meghan Markle’s sister hits out at her ‘misinformation’.
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Meghan Markle’s father Thomas has hand delivered a letter to Oprah Winfrey, requesting an interview about his strained relationship with his daughter.
Mr Markle, 76, drove to Winfrey’s $A120 million mansion in Montecito, California to hand a note to a masked security guard outside the property.
According to The Sun, Mr Markle has offered to tell his side of the story after Meghan’s claims of betrayal in the ex-Royal couple’s tell-all chat with the talk show superstar.
According to the publication, Mr Markle feel he deserves a right of reply.
Winfrey lives about 2km from the $20 million home of Ms Markle, Prince Harry and their son Archie, the grandson he has never met.
Ms Markle claimed she was “betrayed” by her father when he posed for paparazzi pictures in the leading up to the royal wedding.
“When I said we won’t be able to protect our own kids one day and I said: ‘So I just need you to tell me and if you tell me the truth, we can help’,” Ms Markle said.
“He wasn’t able to do that. And that for me has really resonated, especially now as a mother.
“I look at Archie, I think about this child, and I genuinely can’t imagine doing anything to intentionally cause pain to my child.”
Following the controversial interview, Mr Markle called Prince Harry “snotty” and hit out at their claims of racism within the Royal Family as “bull****”.
He also recalled the night Prince Harry dressed as a Nazi soldier and played billiards while naked in Las Vegas.
“She made a statement saying she lost me — she didn’t lose me, I would’ve always been there for her, I’m there for her now if she wants me,” Mr Markle said.
“We all make mistakes — but I’ve never played naked pool or dressed like Hitler like Harry did.”
SAMANTHA MARKLE HITS OUT AT ‘MISINFORMATION’
Meghan Markle’s estranged half-sister, Samantha Markle, says Prince Harry is hardly qualified to “fight misinformation” at his new gig.
Samantha — who previously said she believes Meghan has a “narcissistic personality disorder” while Harry suffers from Stockholm syndrome — claims the couple’s bombshell sit-down with Oprah Winfrey contained lies so Harry has no business dealing in truth-telling.
“Harry is in no position to work for a company that deals in misinformation or mental health issues until he himself is made whole and until [he and Meghan] get a grip on what the truth is,” Samantha, 56, recently said on New Zealand journalist Heather Du Plessis-Allan’s Newstalk ZB Radio show, adding that she believes they need counselling.
The Duke of Sussex was recently named as the chief impact officer of online mental health coaching service BetterUp Inc., and joins the Commission on Information Disorder to create recommendations for “society’s urgent mis- and disinformation challenge,” the organisation said.
“To talk about Harry working, representing a company that deals in disinformation, he’s been a party to it,” Samantha claimed.
Page Six reported that Samantha claims Meghan stretched the truth during the Winfrey sit-down when she claimed she hadn’t seen her half-sister in 18 or 19 years. Samantha said the siblings were photographed together in 2008, which was 13 years ago.
“Anybody who has a calculator or a functioning frontal lobe knows that that was not 19 years ago,” Samantha said.
Samantha also said that her 2008 degree has the last name Markle — even though Meghan said Samantha only started using the moniker after her famous half-sister started dating Harry.
She referenced that Meghan’s claim that she and Harry wed three days before their wedding has also reportedly been debunked.
Meghan and Samantha share the same father, Thomas Markle.
PRINCE ALBERT SLAMS HARRY AND MEGHAN INTERVIEW
Prince Albert of Monaco has taken aim at Prince Harry and Meghan Markle over their explosive interview with Oprah Winfrey.
In a rare interview, the ruler said the couple should have kept their “dissatisfaction” with royal life “within the intimate quarters of the family”.
Meghan claimed the couple’s son Archie Harrison was not made a prince or given security following conversations where at least one senior royal had expressed concern at “how dark” Archie’s skin would be.
Neither she, nor Harry, were prepared to name the royal involved.
“I think this type of public display of dissatisfaction, these type of conversations should be held within the intimate quarters of the family,” Prince Albert, 63, told BBC World News.
“It doesn’t really have to be laid out in the public sphere like that.
“So it did bother me a little bit, I can understand where they’re coming from in a certain way, but I think it wasn’t the appropriate forum to be able to have these kind of discussions.”
He said he wished Harry “the best” on his new life.
“It’s a difficult world out there, and I hope that he can have judgment and wisdom to make the right choices,” the prince said.
WHY HOLLYWOOD COULD ‘DITCH’ HARRY, MEGHAN
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s tell-all interview with Oprah Winfrey may have cost them a spot in the Hollywood elite, a royal expert has claimed.
The Duke and Duchess, who have set up home in California, have been linked to A-listers including George Clooney and the Obamas.
Writing in the Guardian, Barbara Ellen said that the couple’s chances of being accepted into Hollywood’s elite have diminished since airing their grievances about Buckingham Palace to Oprah.
Ellen wrote: “Considering where Meghan and Prince Harry wish to end up, are they blowing it up big-time?
“Put it this way: has Michelle Obama ever sat on a TV sofa b****ing about her sister-in-law?”
According to The Sun, Ellen pointed out that “such behaviour” is the “antithesis of how the mega-rich, uber-influential, notoriously private elite conduct themselves.”
It comes as tennis champ Serena Williams praised her friend Meghan’s “class and strength” after her interview with Oprah Winfrey.
The tennis champ, 39, said close friend Meghan is ‘the strongest person” she knows.
The 23-time Grand Slam winner told The Shine Series: “Meghan is a great person and I think the epitome of strength, the epitome of confidence – the epitome of just selflessness, and the epitome of everything is just her and everything that she’s gone through.
“You can see from the interview that it wasn’t easy. But she had so much poise and she still had so much class.
“I just think that she is the strongest person I know. I don’t know anyone else that could handle anything on such a global scale the way that she’s had to handle things that are just untrue – minute after minute.”
HUGE PROBLEM WITH HARRY, MEGHAN’S INTERVIEW
Oprah Winfrey did not approach the royal family for a response to claims made in Prince Harry and Meghan’s bombshell interview, it has been alleged.
The talk show queen’s production company Harpo told People: “The interview was intended to be a conversation with the couple”.
“The Palace was not contacted to participate in or respond to the interview.”
It came as The Sunrevealed Meghan will be the subject of a tell-all book written about her by Tom Bower, one of the world’s most feared celebrity biographers.
Bower, the man behind Simon Cowell, Philip Green and Bernie Ecclestone’s revelatory tomes, has agreed a huge six figure advance.
He will start writing the book next year, spending the next 12 months collating evidence and speaking to the star and husband Prince Harry’s friends, foes and associates.
Following several bids, publisher Simon & Schuster is understood to have bought the rights.
HARRY’S POST-ROYAL ROLE
Prince Harry has a new day job with a senior gig at a Silicon Valley start-up.
His new role as chief impact officer with online coaching and mental health company BetterUp Inc was announced on Tuesday in the US.
“I intend to help create impact in people’s lives,” Harry told The Wall St Journal ahead of the announcement.
“Proactive coaching provides endless possibilities for personal development, increased awareness, and an all-round better life,” he said.
Harry said he had been using the BetterUp product for several months.
“I was matched with my coach who, quite frankly, is truly awesome and has always given me sound advice and a fresh perspective, which is so valuable,” he said.
Harry, 36, recently complained during his bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey that he had been “cut off” financially from the Royals and was forced to foot the security bill for his family.
He said he was surviving on new media deals he had cooked up with Spotify and Netflix as well as the $A17 million he inherited from his late mother Diana’s estate when he turned 30.
“I have what my mum left me and without that, we wouldn’t have been able to do this,” he said of he and Meghan Markle’s move to the United States.
“It’s like she saw it coming and she’s been with us through this whole process.”
BetterUp chief Alexi Robichaux confirmed Harry’s appointment to the WSJ but did not say how he was being paid.
“It’s a meaningful and meaty role,” said Robichaux.
Harry has previously announced he intended to focus on mental health issues, including working with Winfrey to build awareness.
He also has been outspoken about his support for Meghan’s own battle with depression, which she highlighted in the Winfrey interview this month where she shared she had considered suicide when she was a working Royal living in London.
SECRET WEDDING CLAIM
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have conceded they did not get married at a secret ceremony three days before their wedding.
In their recent interview with Oprah Winfrey, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex claimed they had tied the knot “in out backyard” 72 hours before their globally-televised public wedding on May 19, 2018.
But UK media outlet The Sun revealed the couple were not legally married on the earlier date.
A spokesman for the couple admitted to The Sun that Prince Harry and Meghan had “privately exchanged personal vows a few days before their official/legal wedding on May 19.”
—With The New York Post
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Originally published as Prince Harry, Meghan Markle: Thomas Markle demands interview with Oprah
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