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Samantha Markle Denies Being connected Royal Police Watch List
Meghan Markle's estranged half-sister Samantha Markle has mislaid her defamation lawsuit against the Duchess of Sussex.
On March 30, a Florida judge granted Meghan's question to disregard the lawsuit's claims without prejudice, according to tribunal documents obtained by E! News.
Samantha, 58, alleged successful her 2022 filing that respective defamatory comments astir her were published in Carolyn Durand and Omid Scobie's 2020 book Finding Freedom: Harry and Meghan and the Making of a Modern Royal Family. The unauthorized biography astir Meghan and hubby Prince Harry contains a section titled "A Problem Like Samantha."
Samantha besides accused the duchess of making more defamatory statements astir her successful the couple's 2021 CBS interview with Oprah Winfrey. She noted successful her suit how Meghan, 41, told the TV personality, "I grew up arsenic an lone child, which everyone who grew up astir maine knows, and I wished I had siblings."
In her filing, Samantha—who shares begetter Thomas Markle with Meghan—stated that the alleged "defamatory statements" caused her irreparable prejudice, injury, and harm to her reputation, arsenic good arsenic anxiousness and affectional distress. She besides said she received hatred mail, ongoing antagonistic press, and was stalked by 1 of Meghan's fans.
In his ruling dismissing each allegations, the judge stated that Samantha's "claims based connected Finding Freedom volition beryllium dismissed with prejudice, arsenic [she] cannot plausibly allege that [Meghan] published the book, and amendment of these claims would beryllium futile."
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With respect to Meghan's "only child" comments successful the Oprah interview, the justice ruled, "As a tenable listener would recognize it, [Meghan] merely expresses an sentiment astir her puerility and her narration with her half-siblings. Thus, the Court finds that [her] connection is not objectively verifiable oregon taxable to empirical proof."
In his ruling, the justice besides recovered that 2 different alleged defamatory statements Samantha claimed Meghan made to Oprah were not really recovered successful the interrogation transcript. The duchess' sister, helium noted, "does much than paraphrase [Meghan's] words—she substantively changes the meaning of what was said."
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Meanwhile, Samantha can file an amended complaint regarding claims related to the Oprah interrogation wrong 14 days, the justice ruled, and she plans to bash so.
"This upcoming amendment volition code definite ineligible issues that are related to our claims for defamation arsenic it specifically relates to the Oprah interrogation connected CBS," her attorney, Jamie A. Sasson, told E! News successful a connection March 31, adding that they "look guardant to presenting an adjacent stronger statement for the defamation and losses that our lawsuit has had to endure."
Samantha's lawsuit comes aft respective years of criticizing Meghan and Harry publicly. This includes comparing the duchess to the Disney villain Cruella de Vil connected Twitter conscionable a fewer months aft Harry and Meghan's 2018 wedding—which Samantha was not invited to—and publishing a memoir successful 2021 that refers to Meghan arsenic "Princess Pushy."
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