Prince Harry Asked by Meghan Markle's Half-Sister to Testify in Defamation Case Against His Wife
Prince Harry is being asked to testify in the defamation lawsuit filed by Meghan Markle's half-sister, Samantha Markle. In the lawsuit filed against the Duchess of Sussex, Samantha Markle has formally requested that Meghan's husband give a deposition, on video and under oath, later this month.
According to Fox News, Meghan's half-sister demanded the Sussexes to take the stand after allegedly making a "false" statement in their 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey.
The televised Oprah Winfrey tell-all interview was viewed by around 50 million worldwide. In the lawsuit, Samantha argued that Meghan's childhood recollections, as discussed in the interview, were "fabricated," especially the part wherein the duchess claimed to grow up as "an only child."
In the paperwork filed Friday, Samantha said she wanted the couple to be deposed in separate interviews. The documents noted that the duchess "has not agreed to schedule one single deposition."
Samantha also wanted to have the depositions of her father, Thomas Markle, former royal aide Jason Knauf, and her daughter Ashleigh Hale. She also eyed the testimony
Samantha Markle filed the papers in a Florida district court last February 3, suing Meghan Markle for $75,000 in damages over comments she made during her Oprah Winfrey interview, The Independent reported.
The duchess' half-sister complained that her reputation suffered after the former actress made what she alleged were "demonstrably false and malicious statements" regarding their childhood. Samantha claimed in the lawsuit that she was subjected to "humiliation, shame, and hatred on a worldwide scale" as a result of those remarks.
She further claimed that she regularly drove her half-sister to school and took her on shopping trips to a local mall when she was a child, which implied to have disproved Meghan's claim that she grew up as an "only child."
On the other hand, Meghan is seeking to have the case dismissed. Her lawyer, Michael J. Krump, said the demands made were "irrelevant to the issues involved." Apart from saying that Meghan did not make some of the statements alleged, Krump noted that those mentioned by his client were simply matters of opinion, which were "substantially true in any event."
The lawyer added that Samantha was asking the court to deliberate whether she and Meghan had "ever been close," and whether the duchess' feelings that she grew up "as an only child" were true or false.
Last year, Meghan Markle won a lawsuit against the Mail. The media outlet was ordered to pay the Duchess of Sussex just £1 in damages for invading her privacy after it published a private letter she sent to her father in 2018.
BBC reported that the amount was set out in court documents, confirming that the newspaper has accepted losing and will no longer take the case to the Supreme Court.
The outlet will also pay an unspecified amount for a separate case of infringing Meghan's copyright by publishing large parts of the letter. The Mail also had to cover a significant part of Meghan Markle's legal cost, which could be more than £1 million.
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