Meghan Markle Finally Speaks Out About Estranged Half-Sister Samantha

If there's one person who just hasn't been able to stop talking about Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, since she started dating Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex — aside from Piers Morgan, of course — it's Meghan's half-sister, Samantha Markle. Over the years, Samantha has pretty much chatted to any media outlet that will listen about her estranged sibling (the two share the same father, Thomas Markle) — and she hasn't exactly always had the nicest thing to say about her own flesh and blood.

In fact, Samantha has pretty much criticized Meghan at every turn, including repeatedly questioning her marriage to Harry and slamming her "Archetypes with Meghan" podcast. "Harry seems to play second fiddle. It didn't hurt to use the title and the royal marriage as a springboard but after the wedding was over it feels as though Harry is in the shadow," she said on "Dan Wootton Tonight" in August, adding that Meghan involving him with her podcast felt like a fake publicity move. "It just seemed very dismissive and, I felt, insulting," she added.

But that's hardly the first time Samantha has blasted the couple's relationship. In March 2021, in the wake of their tell-all sit down with Oprah Winfrey, Samantha told TMZ that she thought the twosome's relationship will likely eventually divorce. She even suggested Harry may have been questioning if he made the right decision marrying Meghan, asking, "What man would be happy or comfortable like that?" 

All that public chatter about Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, has been one-sided. Up until now, that is. Meghan spoke publicly about her half-sister Samantha Markle for the first time in a long time in her and Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex's Netflix series, "Harry & Meghan," marking the first time she's formerly addressed all the interviews her half-sister gives about her.

Meghan claimed in Episode 3 that she was surprised to see Samantha start talking about her so publicly, as she hadn't even seen her since she was in her early 20s. "Suddenly, it felt like she was everywhere," Meghan said as she reminisced about the last time they saw each other, which she claimed only lasted about a day and a half. Meghan denied ever having a close relationship with Samantha, telling her through the screen, "I don't know your middle name. I don't know your birthday. You're telling these people you raised me, and you coined me Princess Pushy?" Meghan also denied ever falling out with Samantha because they were never close enough to begin with, adding, "We didn't have a closeness to be able to have that. And I wanted a sister!"

Meghan's clap back goes against much of what Samantha has claimed in interviews over the years and in her 2021 book, "The Diary of Princess Pushy's Sister: A Memoir Part 1," in which she claimed the Meghan is totally different today than when she knew her.

It really is a family affair in Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's "Harry & Megan" series, as, not only did Meghan speak out against Samantha Markle, but the latter's daughter also threw in her two cents regarding her family's estrangement. While Meghan and Samantha do not have a relationship, Meghan revealed she's actually very close to her niece, Ashleigh Hale, who stopped speaking to her mom amid the family drama.

"I wanted a sister and she was like a little sister. Ash was put through quite a bit by the media just through association. I didn't want her life to be plagued with all that drama," Meghan shared, while Hale spoke candid about what their relationship is really like. "There's a sister element, there's something maternal, she's a best friend, she's kind of all the things," she said during Episode 3. The two also discussed why Hale was not invited to Meghan and Harry's 2018 wedding, with the former explaining she was advised her niece not attend because Samantha wouldn't be invited. "I was hurt on some level but I understood where it was coming from," Ashleigh explained, admitting she struggled with knowing she couldn't be there for Meghan because of her mom.

Meghan and Hale's relationship had mainly been kept out of the spotlight until Hale spoke out in the documentary, though Meghan did share a sweet photo of the two of them on her since deleted Instagram in 2016.

As with pretty much every other aspect of Meghan Markle's life, Samantha Markle has an opinion on her half-sister and Prince Harry's Netflix documentary series. Before the first set of episodes dropped on December 8, she slammed the series while discussing the trailer on the British news channel GB News. "So many things seem to be completely opposite of what they really are. We're redefining everything," she said, admitting she was particularly shocked by Harry's claim that he felt he had to leave the royal family in order to protect his family. "I thought, 'What is he talking about?' This is not protection. If we're watching a series over here, what we're seeing is a series of attacks one after the other. And it seems irreparable. When you contrast it with what's going on in reality, it makes no sense whatsoever," she said.

Samantha isn't the only one telling her side of the story when it comes to the documentary series, either. A source claimed to Independent that Buckingham Palace (King Charles and Camilla, Queen Consort) and Kensington Palace (William, Prince of Wales, and Catherine, Princess of Wales) were not asked by Netflix to give a comment, despite the episodes claiming they were. A message read alongside the series, "Members of the royal family declined to comment on the content within this series."