Meghan Markle has recalled the moment when she believed her father’s phone had been “compromised” in the days building up to her wedding to Prince Harry.
In episode three of the new Netflix documentary Meghan and Harry, the Duchess of Sussex remembered the moment when she was told to call her father and ask if he had been taking money from tabloids to stage photos.
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“‘No,’” Meghan’s father said, according to her interaction with him, as she recalled: “And on that call, I’d said to him, ‘Look, if they can’t stop this story then it’s going to come out tomorrow so why don’t we send someone to your house right now to get you out of there.’
“‘Because if that’s the case then your house will be swarmed by media. We’ll get you out.’”
However, the duchess’s father apparently said no as he had “things he needed to do”.
“It felt really cagey,” Meghan said in the documentary. “When we hung up, I looked at Harry and said ‘I don’t know why but I don’t believe him.’”
In May 2018, numerous publications published photos of Thomas supposedly attempting to learn more about his daughter’s life in Britain.
In some of the photographs, Thomas can be seen flipping through a book of British landmarks, while others show him at an internet cafe reading about his daughter’s relationship with Prince Harry.
From the photos, it appeared Meghan’s father was excited for his daughter’s wedding and was eagerly learning more about Britain ahead of his own arrival for the royal wedding.
However, the Daily Mail reported the photos were staged after receiving security footage that allegedly showed Thomas and a photographer, Jeff Rayner, at an internet cafe.
In the docuseries, Meghan recalled learning that her father wouldn’t be attending her wedding from a TMZ report.
“The unraveling happened that week when he wouldn’t pick up my call,” Meghan said. “And instead you’re talking to TMZ.
“And I’m finding out that you’re not coming to our wedding through a tabloid.”
Following that incident, Meghan said that she kept calling her father over 20 times to find out what was really going on, amid reports he had been admitted to hospital after suffering a heart attack, when she received a strange text.
“It was really weird. You know how people text, right?” Meghan said. “My dad used a lot of emojis and a lot of ellipses and this [text] was just the opposite and it called me ‘Meghan’.
“I was like ‘He’s never called me Meghan in any day I’ve lived on this planet.’ Everyone calls me Meg.
“So then, we knew his phone had been compromised.”
Screenshots of texts between the royal couple and Thomas Markle included one from Harry asking Thomas to call them so they could check it was him using his phone.
Harry and Meghan is directed by Liz Garbus and features archival footage and interviews with the couple’s friends, family, and historians.
Follow along here for live updates about the Harry and Meghan documentary.
