Meghan Markle Breaks Silence on Sister Samantha Markle’s Tell-All Book in Oprah Interview

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry‘s interview with Oprah Winfrey on Sunday shed new light on Markle’s extended family back home in the U.S. In their wide-ranging discussion, Winfrey asked Markle about the media circus that encircled her father, Thomas Markle and half-sister Samantha Markle on his side. The simple truth, she said, is that they never really had a relationship.

Meghan was careful when discussing her father, who fueled British tabloid reports from the time of her royal wedding to the present. However, she was frank when Winfrey asked about her older half-sister, Samantha. Samantha published a book last month called The Diary of Princess Pushy’s Sister: A Memoir, Part One. While it was billed as a “tell-all” about Markle, the royal family and her life, Markle herself said that she could not imagine it was very accurate.

“I think it would be very hard to ‘tell all’ when you don’t know me,” she said. “This is a very different situation than my dad — when you talk about betrayal, betrayal comes from someone that you have a relationship with, right? I don’t feel comfortable talking about people that I don’t really know.”

“I grew up as an only child, which everyone who grew up around me knows,” Markle added. “I wished I’d had siblings! I would have loved to have had siblings! That’s why I’m so excited to be pregnant so that Archie will have someone.”

At Winfrey’s request, Markle confirmed that she did not grow up with Samantha, did not spend a lot of time with her, and never had a real relationship with her at all. She even suggested that Samantha had been planning to capitalize on her surname since Markle’s first reports dating the prince got out.

“It’s really interesting; I mean, the last time I saw her must have been at least 18, 19 years ago? And before that, 10 years before that,” Markle said. “She changed her last name back to Markle — I think she was in her early 50s at that time — only when I started dating Harry. So I think that says enough.”

Markle was hesitant to say that she felt “betrayed” by their father, though she did not deny it either. However, she heaped blame on British tabloids for exploiting Thomas and manipulating events to serve their coverage.
These are just some of the revelations to come out of Markle’s bombshell interview with Winfrey. The full interview is streaming now on CBS.com.