The good news just kept rolling in last night – Trump indicted, Gwyneth acquitted, and Samantha Markle’s dumbf–k lawsuit was thrown out of court. Previously, I tried to unpack Samantha’s defamation lawsuit against her sister Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex. Basically, it came down to Samantha trying to prove that Meghan “defamed” her when Meghan spoke to Oprah about her childhood, which Meghan described as feeling like “an only child.” Plus, Samantha claimed that Finding Freedom defamed her, only Meghan did not write or publish Finding Freedom. The case was crawling its way through Florida’s civil courts, and it even looked like the Duke and Duchess of Sussex might have to sit for depositions for this nuisance suit. But no, the judge dismissed this mess on Thursday.
Samantha Markle has lost her defamation case against her half-sister, the Duchess of Sussex, after a judge in Florida granted a motion to dismiss. Samantha lodged her case in March 2022, when she sued Meghan Markle for “defamation and injurious falsehoods” along with “malicious lies” in a number of alleged instances, including during the duchess’s well-publicized sit-down interview with Oprah Winfrey alongside husband Harry.
On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Charlene Edwards Honeywell granted Meghan’s motion to dismiss after Samantha claimed the pair’s relationship “unravelled” as the duchess’s star rose and she eventually met Prince Harry.
Three of the issues Samantha noted in the lawsuit stemmed from Oprah’s 2021 interview, where Meghan claimed that she was “an only child,” that she had only met her half-sister “a handful of times,” and that Samantha had changed her surname to Markle after Meghan started dating Prince Harry so that she “could cash in on her newfound fame.”
“A reasonable listener would not think that Defendant was suggesting that she has no half-siblings, that Plaintiff does not actually exist, or that Plaintiff is not related to her,” the ruling reads regarding Meghan’s claim to Oprah that she was an “only child.”
“As a reasonable listener would understand it, Defendant merely expresses an opinion about her childhood and her relationship with her half-siblings. Thus, the Court finds that Defendant’s statement is not objectively verifiable or subject to empirical proof…. Because the statement is not ‘capable of being proved false, it is protected from a defamation action.’”
Samantha claimed in her lawsuit that Meghan told Oprah that the pair had only met “a handful of times”—but the court wrote that it could not verify that allegation: “This statement is nowhere to be found in the interview transcript.” The court ultimately denied the claim without prejudice and with leave to amend.
Similarly, Samantha’s claim she changed her surname for fame was dismissed “because it is explicitly contradicted by the transcript,” noting the allegations Samantha noted were not true to what Meghan actually said during the interview: “She changed her last name back to Markle, and I think she’s in her early fifties at that time, only when I started dating Harry. And so I think that says enough.”
The claims were dismissed without prejudice, though Samantha could file an amended complaint within 14 days of the order.
In another instance, Samantha alleges her half-sister “contributed false information” to the authors of the book, Finding Freedom: Harry and Meghan and the Making of a Modern Royal Family—specifically mentioning Chapter 12, titled: “A Problem Like Samantha.” However, the court agreed with Meghan: “Defendant argues that the claims based on Finding Freedom must fail because she did not publish the book,” the ruling reads. “The Court agrees.”
The court denied Samantha’s request for attorneys’ fees and costs under the anti-SLAPP statute without prejudice, as premature.
[From The Daily Beast]
From what I can see, there hasn’t been a ruling on whether Samantha will have to pay for Meghan’s legal fees, but the court did say that Meghan won’t have to pay Samantha’s fees or anything else. Man, it’s been awfully quiet in White Markle-ville for a while? No updates from Mexico, and Samantha just got her delusional ass handed to her. What a shame. No, really – it’s a shame that Meghan’s relations are so f–king tacky and despicable. I can’t even imagine doing this to a family member. Anyway, I hope Samantha is broke as f–k and she crawls under a rock.
Photos courtesy of Instar, WENN.
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