Meghan Markle Just Received The Most Devastating News About Her Legal Battle With Her Sister—She Must Be Freaking Out

 Meghan Markle Just Received The Most Devastating News About Her Legal Battle With Her Sister—She Must Be Freaking Out

 Meghan Markle’s estranged half-sister Samantha Grant (although she has primarily gone by Samantha Markle since Prince Harry and Meghan started publicly dating) is reportedly suing her for defamation, claiming that she made “false and malicious statements” about her “rags to royalty” life in her tell-all Oprah interview that aired one year ago.

In court documents obtained by TMZ, the 57-year-old – who shares father Thomas Markle with the 40-year-old Duchess of Sussex – claimed that the explosive sit-down interview actually “hurt” the sales of her tell-all autobiography, The Diary of Princess Pushy’s Sister — Part 1, which was published earlier last year. As per the lawsuit, Grant alleged that the interview “hurt sales of her autobiography, prevented her from getting jobs and caused emotional and mental distress.”

Grant accused her half-sister of launching a "premeditated campaign to destroy" her and her father's reputations, claiming she tried to ruin their credibility so "they could not interfere with or contradict the false narrative and fairy tale life story concocted by the defendant."

She then questioned her sister's "rags to royalty" narrative, claiming that she made it seem like she grew up in "virtual poverty," but in actuality, that couldn’t have been further from the truth, as she said that their father sent her to "elite and expensive private schools," and also paid for "dance and acting classes." Grant said that this therefore didn't match up with what Meghan previously said about her education, as she also claimed that she had to work throughout her college years in order to pay for her Northwestern University education herself.

The lawsuit also mentions Meghan's comment to Oprah about not seeing her sister in "at least 18, 19 years," as well as how the pair have actually only met a "handful of times," both of which, Samantha says, are untrue. "This is false. Samantha spent time with defendant on a regular basis throughout her childhood and even lived in the same apartment house with defendant for a period of time," the lawsuit said.

"Samantha picked up Meghan from school; took Meghan for ice cream and to the mall regularly, and spent many family holidays with the defendant. Meghan's father was Meghan's primary caregiver and Meghan and Samantha saw each other regularly."

The Duchess has responded to her half-sister's lawsuit through her legal team. "This baseless and absurd lawsuit is just a continuation of a pattern of disturbing behavior," Michael Kump, Meghan’s lawyer, said in a statement to TMZ. "We will give it the minimum attention necessary, which is all it deserves," he continued. As things currently stand, Samantha is seeking $75,000 from Meghan, and has demanded a trial by jury.

The moment we have all been waiting for has finally arrived, as a Florida judge has officially set a date for the trial should they fail to settle the matter during mediation. According to reports, Judge Charlene Honeywell set a trial date of October 2nd, 2023 (barring a settlement, of course) which will take place in her Tampa, Florida courtroom. Honeywell reportedly wants both parties to submit their files quickly and efficiently, to make everything as "inexpensive" as possible!

"The purpose of this order is to discourage wasteful pretrial activities, and to secure the just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of this action," Honeywell wrote, according to the New York Post. Reports have also suggested that Honeywell estimated the trial to last five days.

We don’t know how long the trial will actually take, although Meghan's sister has since found even more issues with the Duchess, particularly with some of the things that were written in Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand's book, Finding Freedom. Grant alleges that the book disparages her for losing custody of her children. However, Meghan's lawyers have argued that she can’t be held accountable for anything inside a book she didn’t write, despite the many rumors that suggested that she and Prince Harry actually had a lot of say in what was written. We can't wait to see what happens!