Samantha Markle says sister Meghan uses depression as ‘excuse’ to treat people ‘like dishrags’
Meghan Markle’s half-sister Samantha SLAMS her Oprah interview, accusing Duchess of using ‘depression as an excuse to treat people like dishrags’ – and firing back at her claim that they haven’t seen each other in 20 years
- Samantha, 56, who shares a father, Thomas, with Meghan, 39, unleashed a furious rant against her half-sister in the wake of her bombshell Oprah interview
- On Monday morning, new clips from the interview showed Meghan discussing her relationship with her father and Samantha
- She accused her dad of ‘betraying her’ and said that her half-sister Samantha ‘doesn’t know her’ and claimed they haven’t see each other in 20 years
- Samantha shared proof to refute this claim, sharing images of herself and Meghan at her college graduation 13 years ago
- Meghan also claimed in the interview clips that Samantha only changed her name back to Markle when her half-sister began dating Harry
- Samantha shared evidence to the contrary, revealing that she filed a petition to change her last name to Markle in December 1997
- When asked about Meghan’s admission that she struggled with suicidal thoughts, Samantha accused her of using her mental health as ‘an excuse’
- ‘Depression is not an excuse for treating people like dishrags and disposing of them,’ she said of her half-sibling’s struggle
Meghan Markle’s half-sister Samantha has slammed the royal’s bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey, saying ‘the truth was totally ignored and omitted’ while providing photos and documents to disprove each of the Duchess of Sussex’s claims about her.
The 56-year-old also admitted that she has no sympathy for Meghan, 39, who revealed during the shocking interview that she battled suicidal thoughts during her time as a royal – instead accusing the Duchess of using her ‘depression as an excuse for treating people like dishrags’.
In newly-released footage from Prince Harry and Meghan’s explosive CBS interview, the pregnant Duchess of Sussex told Oprah, 67, that Samantha ‘doesn’t know’ her, claiming she was raised as ‘an only child’ – but her half-sister has now insisted that couldn’t be further from the truth.
‘I don’t know how she can say I don’t know her and she was an only child. We’ve got photographs over a lifespan of us together. So how can she not know me?’ she told Inside Edition, while sharing images of the two women together at different stages throughout their lives – most recently in 2008, just 13 years ago.
Fury: Meghan Markle’s half-sister Samantha has slammed the Duchess’ interview with Oprah – and accused her of using her ‘depression’ as an ‘excuse to treat people like dishrags’
Clapback: In new footage from the interview that was shared on Monday morning, Meghan, 39, was seen insisting that her half-sister ‘doesn’t know her’
When Oprah had asked Meghan about Samantha’s tell-all book, The Diary of Princess Pushy’s Sister, the Duchess retorted: ‘I think it would be very hard to tell all when you don’t know me.’
The expectant mom added that she had grown up ‘an only child’ and claimed she hadn’t seen her half-sister in nearly two decades.
However, Samantha provided photos that show them together throughout the years, including one of them at her college graduation in 2008.
The Duchess also claimed that Samantha only changed her surname back to Markle after Meghan struck up a romance with Harry – suggesting that her half-sister was trying to capitalize on the public interest in her name.
‘She changed her last name back to Markle… only when I started dating Harry. So I think that says enough,’ she said.
But Samantha insisted that this claim was wholly inaccurate, and shared further evidence to refute it.
‘I was a Markle before she was,’ she said. ‘I though that was kind of weird that she would say I only changed my name back when she met Harry. Markle has always been my name.’
Samantha then showed Inside Edition her petition to change her name that was dated back to December 1997 and her college diploma, which says Samantha M. Markle.
When asked about her half-sister’s revelation that she struggled with suicidal thoughts, Samantha said that she had little sympathy for her, and actually accused Meghan of using her mental health an ‘an excuse’ for treating people ‘like dishrags’.
‘Depression is not an excuse for treating people like dishrags and disposing of them,’ she said.
During the interview, a tearful Meghan told Oprah that the stress of her role as a royal became so bad that she felt suicidal as a result of the pressure she was under.
Evidence: Samantha blasted Meghan’s claim that the two women haven’t seen each other in 20 years, sharing an image of them at her college graduation in 2008
Hitting back: According to Samantha, Meghan’s claim that she was raised ‘as an only child’ is wholly inaccurate – and she shared images of the two women over the years to disprove this
Further proof: Samantha legally change her first name from Yvonne in 1997 as seen in this petition which lists her surname as Markle – decades before Meghan began dating Harry
Firing back: Her college diploma from the University of New Mexico, which Samantha earned in 2006, also lists her surname as Markle
‘I didn’t want to be alive any more -this was a very real and frightening constant thought,’ she said.
She said she didn’t want to tell Harry at first because of the loss he had suffered as a result of his mother’s death, but she did and he ‘cradled me’.
Meghan said she begged a senior member of the royal to assist her get help for mental health issue but she was left to suffer alone.
‘I said that I needed to go somewhere to get help,’ she told Oprah. ‘I said that I’ve never felt this way before and I need to go somewhere. And I was told that I couldn’t, that it wouldn’t be good for the institution.’
In one of the most recently-released clips from Meghan’s interview – which were aired the morning after the bombshell sit-down was broadcast – she also spoke about her father Thomas, who is Samantha’s father.
She said she cannot fathom hurting her son Archie the way her own father ‘betrayed’ her before the royal wedding, admitting she ‘found it hard to reconcile’ with Thomas after he insisted that he had not been speaking to the media.
‘I look at Archie, I think about this child, and I genuinely can’t imagine doing anything to intentionally cause pain to my child,’ she said.
Meghan drew a contrast with her mother Doria Ragland, who she praised for remaining ‘in silent dignity for four years’.
The tension between the Markles was addressed in unaired sections of the Sussexes CBS sit-down with Oprah, who probed about her relationship with Thomas.
Thomas was supposed to walk Meghan down the aisle in May 2018 but pulled out of the ceremony following health problems.
The two were also engaged in a row about him speaking to the press.
Oprah asked: ‘Did it feel like betrayal when you found that your father was working with the tabloids?’
After weighing up if she was ‘comfortable’ delving into the issue, Meghan said her father had assured he had ‘absolutely not’ spoken to the press.
She said: ‘If we’re going to use the word betrayal it’s because when I asked him, when we were told by the comms team this was a story that was going to be coming out which, by the way, the tabloids had apparently known for a month or so and decided to hold until the Sunday before our wedding because they wanted to create drama, which is also a key point in all this, they don’t report the news, they create the news.
Upset: Samantha has no sympathy for Meghan, who admitted she suffered with suicidal thoughts, accusing her of ‘using depression as an excuse for treating people like dishrags’
Family: During the newly-released interview clips, which were shared on Monday morning, Meghan accused her father, Thomas, of ‘betraying her’ (seen together in a childhood photo)
‘We called my dad, and I asked him, and he said no, absolutely not.
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 kids one day.
She added: ‘I said we won’t be able to protect our own kids one day, and I said, I just need you to tell me. If you tell me the truth, we can help.
‘And he wasn’t able to do that. And that for me has really resonated, especially now as a mother.’
Meghan went on: ‘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, I’m talking about your grandchildren.
‘I look at Archie, I think about this child, and I go I genuinely can’t imagine doing anything to intentionally cause pain to my child. I can’t imagine it. So it’s hard for me to reconcile that.’
Meghan also said that despite her sister Samantha releasing a book about her, she ‘doesn’t know her’ and they’ve never been close.
Samantha’s autobiography, titled ‘The Diary of Princess Pushy’s Sister: A Memoir, Part One, goes into detail about their childhood.
But the Duchess said: ‘I don’t feel comfortable talking about people that I really don’t know. But I grew up as an only child, which everybody who grew up around me knows.’
She added she wished she had had siblings and was pleased Archie was going to have a younger sister.
