Thomas Markle hits out after Meghan’s claims she ‘grew up on budget salad bar’

Thomas Markle has disputed Meghan’s claims she “grew up on a budget salad bar”, as he yet again took aim at his royal daughter.

Meghan Markle’s father has blasted her claims she grew up on salads at a budget restaurant.

In a new interview, Thomas Markle, 77, also called Prince Harry a “candya**”, meaning a timid or cowardly person, for quitting as a senior royal in the UK.

Thomas’ claims came as Meghan, 40, tried to highlight her humble roots to push for paid parental leave by saying in an October letter to US politicians that she “grew up on the $4.99 salad bar” at Sizzler family restaurants.

But Thomas, speaking from his home in Rosarito, Mexico, told The Sun: “She’s never, ever, ever had to worry about anything like that in her life.

“We’d do the best restaurants in town and we’d do Sizzler because it was convenient. We never had to rub our pennies together and just have the salad bar.

“She had the salad bar, but she had a meal as well.”

He added of Meghan’s note: “She sends letters to senators and congressmen where she calls herself the Duchess. That’s totally wrong. You really shouldn’t do that.”

An old photo of Thomas Markle and his daughter, Meghan. Picture: Thomas Markle: My Story

Thomas, who hasn’t spoken to his daughter since before her wedding in May 2018, also took aim at Harry, 37, for quitting as a frontline royal.

“Harry walked away from his responsibilities and that’s ridiculous. He walked away from his grandmother, the royals and the British people,” Thomas said.

“He’s a candya**. I’d take him on at my age any time. He’d run away from me.”

Last week, the Court of Appeal upheld a ruling that the publisher of The Mail on Sunday breached Meghan’s privacy by publishing a letter she wrote to her dad after marrying Harry in 2018.

Thomas told The Sun: “I got really upset at the judgment because that means I still can’t tell my story and defend myself. I thought there would be a fair trial but now it’s not going to trial. It’s ridiculous. The British system has let me down.

“Unless it’s stamped ‘private’ on top of the letter, how can it be private? It doesn’t make sense to me. If that’s British law I don’t know how anyone can get by.”

Meghan wrote her father a letter after the royal wedding in 2018, detailing her anguish about his frequent public attacks. Picture: Adrian Dennis/AFP

Thomas Markle threatened to air the full contents of Meghan’s letter to him.

Thomas is now considering going on YouTube to read the unpublished parts of Meghan’s letter to him.

He added: “Someday that letter’s going to be released. I still love my daughter but I hate what she’s become. She’s changed so much.”

Meghan addressed her father’s betrayal for the first time during a bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey in March.

She admitted their relationship hadn’t recovered after he pulled out of her wedding due to health problems, before admitting to staging paparazzi photos and leaking information to the press.

Meghan hasn’t spoken directly to her father since prior to her 2018 royal wedding. Picture: Aaron Chown – WPA Pool/Getty Images

“If we are going to use the word betrayal, it’s because when I asked him, when we were told by the comms team, this is a story that was going to be coming out … We called my dad and we asked him,” Meghan said.

“I said, you know, the institution has never intervened for anything for us, but they can try to go in and kill this story. But if they do this once, we’re not going to be able to use that same leverage to protect our own kids one day.

She said she told Thomas that if he admitted to colluding with photographers that they could help him, but that “he wasn’t able to do that”.

“And that for me has really resonated, especially now as a mother. And also me saying just full stop, if we use this to protect you, we won’t be able to protect our own children one day.

“Well, I’m talking about your grandchildren, so I look at Archie. I think about this child and I go I can’t, I genuinely can’t imagine doing anything to intentionally cause pain to my child.”

This story originally appeared on The Sun and was reproduced with permission