Meghan Markle Wrote to Father in “Time of Great Pesonal Anguish”

As anyone following royal news will know, earlier this month Prince Harry and Meghan Markle announced that they’re taking legal action against British newspapers for phone hacking and the misuse of private information. They’re suing multiple outlets including Daily Mail, which Harry and Meghan are going after for publishing Meghan’s private letter to her father Thomas Markle.

Harry has already made a pretty heartfelt statement about the issue, saying, “I cannot begin to describe how painful it has been,” and now the Sussex’s legal team is saying that her letter was written “at a time of great personal anguish and distress.” And while we don’t know for sure, it stands to reason that this ‘personal anguish’ was due to the situation with her father and how the tabloids were treating her.

According to the U.K.’s Press Association, court papers about the royal couple’s claims against Daily Mail state:

The letter was obviously private correspondence written by the claimant to her father. Further, it contained the claimant’s deepest and most private thoughts and feelings about her relationship with her father and were detailed by her at a time of great personal anguish and distress. The claimant intended the detailed contents of the letter to be private, and certainly did not expect them to be published to the world at large by a national newspaper, and without any warning.

And while no one asked for Meghan’s dad to chime in on this legal battle, he of course did. Thomas defended his decision to share the letter with the world, saying, “I decided to release parts of the letter because of the article from Meghan’s friends in People magazine. I have to defend myself. I only released parts of the letter because other parts were so painful.”