This year, Meghan Markle did not post a tribute on social media to her father, Thomas Markle, as the pair have been estranged since Meghan and Prince Harry’s wedding back in 2018, with the former lighting director not having met her husband, or her children, Prince Archie, and Princess Lilibet. Royal experts have queried why an introduction has never been made.
Speaking on The Sun’s Royal Exclusive show, royal author, Hugo Vickers, explains there could be three reasons: “One that she was ashamed of him, which I think is a bit unattractive. Two, possibly that she thought he’d done something, but when Prince Harry rang Mr Markle up and asked if he could marry his daughter, he said ‘you can marry her as long as you never raise your hand against her'”.
He added: “The third reason is that I think she was worried that he might actually have warned Prince Harry – this is not what you’re getting, this girl.”
Thomas Markle famously didn’t attend his daughter’s globally-televised royal wedding to Prince Harry as he suffered from two heart attacks close to the occasion.
The royal author continued: “Mr Markle should have been at the wedding and they should have flown him over and stuck him in a health farm in the Shetlands or somewhere.
“Prince Harry should have gone up to see him and if he couldn’t have walked the aisle he should have been sitting there, because, as you rightly say, he did a lot for that girl and she even admitted it in the early days before she distanced herself from him.”
The Duchess’ estranged father has previously admitted that while he does not like some of Meghan’s behaviour, his “door is always open”.
A feud developed between Thomas and his daughter when he posed for paparazzi pictures ahead of the couple’s wedding. To Oprah Winfrey in 2021, Meghan said: “I’m trying to decide if I’m comfortable even talking about that. It was… if we were going to use the word betrayal.”
It is believed Mr Markle, who ended up unable to attend the couple’s wedding in Windsor as a result of health issues, allowed the staged photographs as he thought it would make him look good and help Meghan after he had been repeatedly followed by photographers.
However, the Duchess and Prince Harry did not see it this way, and the relationship unravelled. Meghan then sent texts and a letter to her father to try and patch things up, with both these attempts failing to make a difference, especially when parts of the letter ended up being leaked to the press by Mr Markle, who wanted to challenge what he believed were unfair media reports on him.
The retired TV lighting director, 80, who had previously lived in a cliffside property near the US border in Rosarito, Mexico, for over a decade, moved to the other side of the world earlier this year.
He made the move to Southeast Asia accompanied by his son Thomas Jr., 58, who is Meghan’s half-brother.