According to The Telegraph, the duchess’s aides have “made it clear” that if Thomas Markle were willing to share a different email address, Meghan’s email would be forwarded on.
Thomas Markle reportedly underwent a three-hour operation in a Philippine hospital on Wednesday after being rushed there on Tuesday from his home on the island of Cebu.
During the surgery, his left leg was amputated below the knee, after it had turned black as a result of a blood clot.
The relationship between the duchess and her father – who was married to Meghan’s mother, Doria Ragland, from 1979 to 1987 – broke down in the lead up to Meghan and Prince Harry’s wedding in 2018.
Notably, Thomas was found to have colluded with photographers, who paid him for paparazzi photos showing him getting ready for the royal wedding.
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“That’s not what you do, that’s not parenting,” Ragland later said of the matter in the duke and duchess’s six-part Netflix docuseries, Harry & Meghan, released in 2022.
Harry’s father, Charles, ultimately walked Meghan down the aisle at St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle, after Thomas pulled out of attending the event, citing health problems. Samantha Markle claimed her father had suffered two heart attacks, which prevented him from flying to London from Los Angeles.
In August 2018, three months after her wedding to the Duke of Sussex, Meghan wrote a five-page letter to her estranged father asking him to stop engaging with the media.
The Mail on Sunday published extracts of the letter in February 2019, prompting the duchess to sue the tabloid for copyright infringement and breach of privacy.
Meghan has been estranged from her father since before her 2018 wedding.Credit: AP
Meghan won the High Court case, and the matter was settled in December 2021 when the tabloid’s appeal was dismissed.
Thomas continued to speak to the media. In 2020, he sat down with British broadcaster Channel 5 for a 90-minute documentary, during which he criticised Meghan and Harry for stepping back from being full-time senior royals and leaving the United Kingdom.
“I think they’re both turning into lost souls at this point,” he said in Thomas Markle: My Life, calling their royal resignation “embarrassing”.
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It’s unclear if Meghan and Thomas resumed a proper relationship after her wedding. It’s believed Thomas has not met Meghan and Harry’s children, six-year-old Prince Archie and four-year-old Princess Lilibet.
Meghan does have a relationship with Samantha’s daughter, Ashleigh Hail, whom the duchess considers more of a sister than a niece.
“I think she takes on a lot of roles for me. There’s a sister element, there’s something maternal. She’s my best friend, she’s kind of all the things,” Hail said of Meghan in the Harry & Meghan docuseries.
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