Meghan wins bid to dismiss half-sister Samantha Markle's 'futile …
Meghan Markle has won her bid to dismiss the defamation case that her estranged half-sister had filed against her. Courts dismissed Samantha Markle's attempt at a defamation case against the Duchess of Sussex, in which she claimed that statements made by Prince Harry and Meghan's 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey, as well as claims made in their unauthorised biography Finding Freedom, were defamatory against her. Samantha, 58, filed the case based upon the belief that in Meghan, 41, saying in the Oprah interview that she "grew up as an only child" and that Samantha had "changed her last name back to Markle" when Meghan began dating Harry was defamatory, dismissing their allegedly close relationship before the relationship began.
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Meghan Markle has won her bid for her half-sister's defamation case to be dismissed. (Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
Samantha Markle was suing Meghan over claims made in the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's 2021 Oprah interview and Finding Freedom. (Nine/Supplied)
She also took issue with a chapter in Finding Freedom, written by royal experts Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand in August 2021, titled "A Problem Like Samantha", which detailed the Sussexes' love story and the steps they took to step down from their senior roles in the royal family. Samantha sought £US75,000 (approx. £112,143) from the case, which she filed in Florida in March 2022, but the judge has since dismissed it. U.S.
District Attorney Judge Charlene Edwards Honeywell wrote in the dismissal: "As a reasonable listener would understand it, Defendant merely expresses an opinion about her childhood and her relationship with her half-siblings." READ MORE: Woman's 'taboo' bedroom confession after being paralysed
Meghan claimed Samantha changed her last name back to Markle after she started dating Harry to Oprah. (AP)
Meghan and Samantha pictured at Samantha's graduation. (Nine/Supplied)
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The judge also added that Samantha's claims for Finding Freedom will also be dismissed on the grounds that Meghan did not write the book herself, and thus can't be held liable for its contents. "Plaintiff cannot plausibly allege that Defendant published the book, and amendment of these claims would be futile," the judge said. Samantha is Meghan's half sister by way of their father, Thomas Markle - both of whom Meghan is estranged from.
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