Meghan Markle wins bid to throw out half-sister Samantha’s defamation case
Global News
A judge ruled that Meghan Markle's remarks about her relationship with Samantha are opinion and cannot be proven false.
Meghan Markle has won her bid to have a defamation case brought by her half-sister thrown out.
A Florida judge dismissed the lawsuit Friday, in which Samantha Markle attempted to sue The Duchess of Sussex for alleged defamation and “injurious falsehood.”
It was ruled by U.S. district judge Charlene Edwards Honeywell that Meghan’s remarks were opinions and “not capable of being proven false.”
“As a reasonable listener would understand it, Defendant merely expresses an opinion about her childhood and her relationship with her half-siblings,” Honeywell wrote in her order, as reported by the BBC.
“Thus, the Court finds that Defendant’s statement is not objectively verifiable or subject to empirical proof. Plaintiff cannot plausibly disprove Defendant’s opinion of her own childhood.”
Samantha brought the civil case forward in March 2022, alleging that Meghan had exposed her to “humiliation, shame and hatred on a worldwide scale” and misrepresented their relationship.
She was seeking damages of US$75,000 over what she claimed were “malicious lies” told about her during Harry and Meghan’s 2020 televised Oprah Winfrey interview and the 2020 biography Finding Freedom.
In the interview, Meghan told Winfrey that she grew up as “an only child.” Samantha accused Meghan of giving the impression that they were “virtual strangers” growing up and that Samantha had “no relationship whatsoever with her sister Meghan.”