'Harry & Meghan': Samantha Markle's Estranged Daughter Talks Relationship With Her Aunt Meghan Markle

The first half of Harry & Meghan was released on Netflix Thursday, pulling down the curtain on Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's lives together. In the third episode, viewers hear from Ashleigh Hale, the daughter of Markle's half-sister, Samantha Markle. Although Markle and Samantha are estranged, the former Suits star has a close relationship with Hale. In her interview, Hale described her relationship with Markle and shared the heartbreaking reason why she was not at Markle and Harry's 2018 wedding.

Hale was raised by her paternal grandparents and reconnected with Samantha in 2007. Markle's father, Thomas Markle, also gave Markle Hale's email address, which put them on track to building a relationship. "There's a sister element, there's something maternal," Hale said of Markle, via E! News. "She's a best friend, she's kind of all the things."

When Samantha began publicly speaking out against Markle, Hale broke off communications with her mother. While she remained close to Markle, Hale was still unable to attend the royal wedding. Markle's mother, Doria Ragland, was notably the only member of the bride's family at the wedding.

Not inviting Hale was "painful," Markle said. At the time, she shared a "small" communications team with Harry's brother Prince William and William's wife, Kate Middleton. They thought it would look strange if Samantha's daughter attended the wedding without Samantha. "'How do we explain that this half-sister isn't invited to the wedding, but that the half-sister's daughter is?'" they wondered, according to Markle.

Afterward, Markle and Harry had a difficult discussion with Hale about the situation. "I think I said I was hurt on some level, but I understood where it was coming from," Hale explained. "To know that it was because of my biological mother that this relationship was so important to me was impacted in that way. To feel like because of her it was taken away. It's been hard."

Elsewhere in Harry & Meghan, Markle said she never had a close relationship with Samantha in the first place. "Suddenly, it felt like she was everywhere," Markle said of her half-sister. She said she had not seen Samantha in "over a decade" when Samantha started making headlines. "I hadn't had a fallout with her," Markle told the cameras. "We didn't have a closeness to be able to have that. And I wanted a sister."

Samantha was not interviewed in the series. She previously claimed to have a close relationship with Markle up until 2018. "Samantha Markle maintains that she and Meghan had a close relationship until 2018 and that the media fabricated quotes that have been attributed to her," reads a disclaimer shown onscreen, notes Page Six.

The first three episodes of Harry & Meghan were released on Thursday. The second three episodes will be released on Dec. 15. The series was directed by Liz Garbus, who earned Oscar nominations for What Happened, Miss Simone? and The Farm: Angola, USA.