Meghan Markle on winning her privacy battle against UK tabloid: ‘We all deserve justice and truth’

Meghan Markle has broken her silence after declaring victory in her battle against the U.K.’s Mail on Sunday for invading the Duchess of Sussex’s privacy by publishing a letter she wrote to her estranged father.

“After two long years of pursuing litigation, I am grateful to the courts for holding Associated Newspapers and The Mail on Sunday to account for their illegal and dehumanizing practices,” the 39-year-old said in a statement sent to Fox News on Friday.

“These tactics (and those of their sister publications MailOnline and the Daily Mail) are not new; in fact, they’ve been going on for far too long without consequence,” she shared. “For these outlets, it’s a game. For me and so many others, it’s real life, real relationships, and very real sadness. The damage they have done and continue to do runs deep.”
 
“The world needs reliable, fact-checked, high-quality news,” Markle continued. “What The Mail on Sunday and its partner publications do is the opposite. We all lose when misinformation sells more than truth, when moral exploitation sells more than decency, and when companies create their business model to profit from people’s pain. 

MEGHAN MARKLE WINS PRIVACY BATTLE AGAINST UK TABLOID OVER PUBLISHING A LETTER TO HER FATHER

“But for today, with this comprehensive win on both privacy and copyright, we have all won. We now know, and hope it creates legal precedent, that you cannot take somebody’s privacy and exploit it in a privacy case, as the defendant has blatantly done over the past two years. I share this victory with each of you—because we all deserve justice and truth, and we all deserve better.”
 
“I particularly want to thank my husband, mom, and legal team, and especially Jenny Afia for her unrelenting support throughout this process,” the duchess concluded her statement.

On Thursday, Judge Mark Warby said Associated Newspapers misused Markle’s private information in five February 2019 articles in the British tabloid and on the MailOnline website, which published portions of a handwritten letter to former Hollywood lighting director Thomas Markle, after her 2018 royal wedding to Prince Harry.

The judge said the duchess “had a reasonable expectation that the contents of the letter would remain private. The Mail articles interfered with that reasonable expectation.”

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The U.K. tabloid published a private letter Meghan Markle (right) wrote to her father, former Hollywood lighting director Thomas Markle (left).
(Mega/Reuters)

The ruling is a significant victory for the duchess, who sued the publisher for invasion of privacy and copyright infringement.

Associated Newspapers contested the claim, and a trial was scheduled for the fall. The duchess asked for a summary judgment to settle the case without a trial.

At a hearing last month, Markle’s lawyer, Justin Rushbrooke, argued that the publisher had “no real prospect” of winning the case.

The star’s lawyers say the “deeply personal” five-page letter was intended for her father alone.

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But the defense argued Markle wrote the letter as part of a media strategy to rebut a negative view conveyed by her father, and with help from the communications team in the royal couple’s Kensington Palace office.

In 2020, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry announced they were taking ‘a step back’ as senior members of the British royal family.
(AP)

Thursday’s ruling means Markle has won her case on privacy grounds, but the judge said a “limited trial” should be held to decide some of the copyright issues.

Markle, an American actress and star of TV legal drama “Suits,” married Harry, a grandson of Queen Elizabeth II, at Windsor Castle in May 2018. Their son, Archie, was born the following year.

In early 2020, the royal couple announced they were quitting royal duties and moving to North America, citing what they said were the unbearable intrusions and racist attitudes of the British media. They recently bought a house in Santa Barbara, California.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.