Meghan Markle is set for a nerve-wracking day as her half-sister, Samantha Markle, makes a last-ditch attempt to revive her libel case. The Duchess was sued by her relative back in 2022 over remarks made in the Sussexes’ interview with Oprah Winfrey and Netflix documentary , but lost in March 2024.
This latest stage will take place in Jacksonville, Florida, at 9am local time. If Samantha wins, she could force Meghan to go to court for a trial and potentially be required to pay damages. If she loses, however, there is no higher court she can take the case to, meaning her three-year campaign against her half-sister will end in failure.
While Meghan is not expected to be present in court, Samantha’s attorney, Peter Ticktin, said the Duchess will be made “accountable for harming the people she harms.”
He continued: “If I were to give advice to Meghan, it would be to wake up and smell the coffee. She keeps trying, but she’s not coming across the way she wants to to the American public.
“Now she’s going to be facing something where she has to be accountable for harming the people she harms, including her sister.”
Meanwhile, speaking back in 2022, Meghan’s lawyer, Michael J. Kump, said they would give the case “the minimum attention necessary, which is all it deserves.”
Speaking after the release of the couple’s docuseries, Harry & Meghan, Samantha’s lawyers claimed a number of comments by the Duchess and an interviewee on the Netflix programme – when viewed together – amounted to a campaign to unfairly undermine Samantha.
When interviewed by Oprah Winfrey in 2021, Meghan explained that she “grew up as an only child” and that she would like to have had siblings to grow up with – with Samantha and Thomas Markle Jr. having already moved out of their father’s home.
Samantha’s team previously alleged that the show guided viewers into believing that Meghan’s half-sister played a role in orchestrating the hate campaign against the Duchess. They also claimed this is an unfair characterisation.
Meghan never explicitly mentioned Samantha when addressing the hate messages targeting, and the section of the episode dedicated to that topic related to trolling being carried out by several accounts.
The Duchess’ lawyers said in their own past filing: “An implicit or express statement that [Samantha] belongs to a hate group spreading disinformation about Meghan is an opinion protected by the First Amendment.”
