Meghan Markle allegedly wrote to her father Thomas Markle that their feud has “broken her heart into a million pieces” and asked him to “stop creating so much pain” in a letter leaked to the Daily Mail.
The existence of the letter was first reported by PEOPLE on Feb. 6 in the magazine’s cover story. However, the full contents of the letter were not revealed until the Daily Mail published it.
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The five-page letter dated August 2018 — four months after the Duchess of Sussex married Prince Harry — is written in an elegant handwriting.
“Daddy, It is with a heavy heart that I write this, not understanding why you have chosen to take this path, turning a blind eye to the pain you’re causing,” the letter begins.
Markle goes on to write, “Your actions have broken my heart into a million pieces — not simply because you have manufactured such unnecessary and unwarranted pain, but by making the choice to not tell the truth as you are puppeteered in this. Something I will never understand.”
Since the wedding last year, Markle’s father Thomas has spoken out countless times against the British Royal Family, accusing them of refusing to let him communicate with his daughter after the infamous paid paparazzi photos he took before the wedding. After the Royal Family announced Meghan is expecting her first child with Harry, he reportedly “escalated” his called to visit her. In December, an Us Weekly source claimed Markle “completely cut” her father off and has no interest in talking to him again.
However, in the August 2018 letter, Markle claims Thomas was lying whenever he said he reached out to the royals.
“You’ve told the press that you called me to say you weren’t coming to the wedding — that didn’t happen because you never called,” she wrote. “You’ve said I never helped you financially and you’ve never asked me for help which is also untrue; you sent me an email last October that said: ‘If I’ve depended too much on you for financial help then I’m sorry but please if you could help me more not as a bargaining chip for my loyalty.’”
Elsewhere in the letter, Markle reminded her father, Thomas to stop reading the tabloids, lying in the press and “please stop exploiting my relationship with my husband.”
She later wrote, “You haven’t reached out to me since the week of our wedding, and while you claim you have no way of contacting me, my phone number has remained the same. This you know. No texts, no missed calls, no outreach from you — just more global interviews you’re being paid to do to say harmful and hurtful things that are untrue.”
“When I opened the letter I was hoping it was the olive branch I’d longed for,” Thomas told the Daily Mail this weekend. “I was expecting something that would be a pathway to reconciliation. Instead, it was deeply hurtful. I was so devastated I couldn’t show it to anyone and never would have had it not been for the events of last week.”
Thomas went on to dispute many of the points in his daughter’s letter, including her claim she called him 20 times to no avail. He insisted he texted her on May 16 to tell them he could not fly to the U.K. for the wedding because of a health crisis.
Thomas said he finally sent a response in September and also tried to reach out to Markle’s mother, Doria Ragland. Thomas and Ragland divorced when Meghan was 3 years old.
“I want nothing more than to sort this mess out,” Thomas told the Daily Mail. “I would ask her and Harry to contact me. All it would take is one phone call and most of this craziness would stop.”
Kensington Palace has not commented on the letter.
Photo credit: Getty Images
