Meghan Markle’s father, Thomas Markle Sr., has admitted to using drugs while the future royal was in his care as a teenager.
In a new interview with The Mail on Sunday, Thomas Markle Sr. revealed that he used drugs while working as a lighting technician in Hollywood 20 years ago, all while his daughter, the newly minted Duchess of Sussex, was growing up. However, he adamantly denied claims that he still uses drugs and insisted that he does not drink alcohol.
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“I hardly drink at all, just a little wine with my dinner, nothing much. I don’t do drugs, haven’t for more than 20 years,” Markle Sr. said. “I’ve been seen carrying a six-pack of beer and they say I’ve a drinking problem. I regularly buy a six-pack for the guys on the guard gate [at his gated community] because they’re stuck in a hot shack for hours each day and could use a cold one. I don’t drink beer at all.”
A source close to Markle Sr. told The Mirror that the Duchess of Sussex’s father used drugs that “helped him work for longer” while he worked as a lighting technician in Hollywood, where recreational drugs were “part and parcel” of the industry. The source also added that Markle Sr. worked 16-hour days and “well into the night” so that he could “give Meghan the life he wanted for her.”
Samantha Markle, the Duchess of Sussex’s estranged half-sister, added that their father is “upstanding” and “doesn’t do recreational drugs” anymore, claiming that his drug use decades ago while her sister was a teenager was largely a result of his job and life in Hollywood, where people commonly used recreational drugs.
“In the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s for most people I know in America it was a cultural thing to smoke marijuana. Most people did. I’m sure people like The Beatles smoked pot when they were on tour. It was a sign of the times,” she said. “I don’t think my father is the only one who can ever have been condemned for having done that. He was never regularly doing it, he never smelt of it and I’ve never seen my father smoke it. But certainly my father has never taken cocaine or any other drugs like that. He didn’t have the mentality for it.”
The Duchess’ father has largely remained estranged from his daughter ever since news broke in May, just days before the royal wedding, that he had staged paparazzi photos with the help of Samantha. In the months since the scandal broke, both Markle Sr. and Samantha have done numerous interviews blasting the Royal Family.
