Meghan Markle has been accused of “attacking her sister” in a bitter legal battle over the duchess’s Netflix show.
Samantha Markle was “forced to move residences, retract from public outings” and “faced realistic death threats” as a result of the royal’s Netflix documentary, according to a court filing.
The Duchess of Sussex was sued by Samantha for defamation and lost, but she is currently fighting at the Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit.
The legal case originally focused on Meghan’s 2021 Oprah Winfrey interview and passages from the biography Finding Freedom, by Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand.
Meghan Markle accused of ‘attacking her sister’ in bitter legal battle over Netflix show
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However, Samantha eventually pivoted to focusing on the Sussexes’ Netflix documentary, Harry & Meghan.
The show, which aired in December 2022, claimed Samantha “was part of the group that was putting out … disinformation” and ended with Meghan saying: “You are making people want to kill me.”
According to claims in Newsweek, a filing by Samantha’s lawyer, Peter Ticktin, read: “There can be no doubt that Meghan Markle attacked her sister Samantha Markle verbally in her documentary.”
It added that Samantha “never was part of any group which put out disinformation, never trolled Meghan, was never part of any hate group, never used the N-word on tweets, never monetarized any hate tweets against Meghan, or did anything to make anyone want to kill Meghan or have Meghan made nervous because of any such activity.”
Samantha Markle previously claimed that Meghan ‘destroyed’ her
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It continued: “Yet, with a dismissal, Meghan is permitted to walk away, as though innocent.”
Meghan’s lawyers said in their own past filing: “An implicit or express statement that [Samantha] belongs to a hate group spreading disinformation about Meghan is an opinion protected by the First Amendment.”
The legal case now focuses on comments made by Christopher Bouzy, the founder of social media analysis firm Bot Sentinel, and Meghan’s own words in her Netflix docuseries.
Bouzy told the documentary: “So this is not your everyday trolling … It’s insane. And it was done by people who were just not the typical quote-unquote trolls.
Harry and Meghan sat down for a bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey criticising aspects of the Royal Family in 2021Harpo Productions“These are housewives. These are middle-aged Caucasian women.
“Samantha Markle was part of the group that was putting out a lot of this disinformation.”
The segment ended with Meghan saying: “You are making people want to kill me. It’s not just a tabloid. It’s not just some story. You are making me scared.”
Samantha’s lawyer argued the “you” of that sentence was not a generic reference to social media trolls, but directed at Samantha herself.
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Christopher Bouzy speaking in Harry and Meghan’s docuseriesNetflix
However, Meghan’s lawyer stated in an earlier filing: “[Samantha’s] bad faith tactics are for naught: Each of the challenged implications in the opening appeal brief is nonactionable for two or more reasons.
“First, the District Court was correct that actual malice was absolutely lacking here.
“There is no claim Meghan harbored serious doubts about the basis for Bouzy’s on-camera statements, as required for her to be liable for the statements of a source.”