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Duchess of Sussex: Meghan wins bid to throw out Samantha Markle legal case

Getty Images Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, and Megan, Duchess of Sussex, arrive for the 2022 Ripple of Hope Award Gala at the New York Hilton Midtown Manhattan Hotel in New York City on December 6, 2022.Getty Images
Prince Harry and Meghan at an awards gala in New York City last December

The Duchess of Sussex has won her bid to throw out a US defamation case brought by her half-sister.

Samantha Markle was suing Meghan for alleged defamation and "injurious falsehood" - including Meghan saying she was an "only child" in her interview with Oprah Winfrey.

She was seeking $75,000 (£62,000) in damages.

But a Florida judge dismissed the case, saying Meghan was expressing an opinion - and opinions cannot be proved false.

In court papers, US District Judge Charlene Edwards Honeywell wrote: "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.... plaintiff cannot plausibly disprove defendant's opinion of her own childhood."

Samantha Markle - who is Meghan's half-sister from father Thomas Markle's first marriage - brought the civil case in March last year.

In it, she alleged Meghan:

  • exposed her to "humiliation, shame and hatred on a worldwide scale"
  • misrepresented their relationship when they were growing up, giving the impression they were "virtual strangers" and she had "no relationship whatsoever with her sister Meghan"
  • "falsely and maliciously stated" she was "an only child", when interviewed with Prince Harry by Oprah Winfrey, in 2021
  • pursued a "false rags-to-royalty narrative", claiming childhood hardship, which destroyed her half-sister and father's "reputation and credibility"

In the Oprah interview - which was watched by more than 50 million people worldwide - Meghan said she did not really know Samantha, adding: "I grew up as an only child, which everyone who grew up around me knows, and I wished I had siblings."

As well as the Oprah TV interview, Samantha Markle - who lives in Florida - alleged the duchess had defamed her by giving information to a 2020 unauthorised biography called Finding Freedom.

But Judge Honeywell also found the duchess could not be liable for the contents of the book because she did not publish it.