Samantha Markle, Meghan’s half-sister, has slammed reports that the Duchess of Sussex has sought out to attempt to mend her four-year estrangement from her estranged father Thomas following his stroke.
‘She’s always had his phone number, it hasn’t changed,’ Ms Markle, 57, added, adding that Mr Markle is unable to speak but is healthy enough to text Meghan if she contacts him.
Since the eve of Meghan’s 2018 wedding to Prince Harry, who has never met his father-in-law, the former Hollywood lighting director has not talked to her.
Thomas had been planning to fly to the UK this week to celebrate next weekend’s Platinum Jubilee, but the stroke a week ago, caused by a blood clot on the right side of Mr Markle’s brain, has scuppered the trip.
Speaking to Good Morning Britain today, Samantha Markle said today: ‘Those rumours are not true, she [Meghan] has not reached out’, but she insisted ‘the door is wide open’ for her half-sister to privately re-connect with him.
She said: ‘He loves all of us and he’s been bashed in the media for always speaking out to extend an olive branch to reach out to her (Meghan).
‘He is her father so he has a right to reach out to her. He has been very honest and open in those feelings and the door is wide open. She’s always had his phone number, it hasn’t changed, and his address, so any suggestion that she doesn’t know how to get hold of him and that she wanted to be private is somewhat ridiculous on the grounds that if you want to reach out to your father privately you know how to do it’.
GMB host Richard Madeley asked why Meghan would want to reach out, given claims he was planning to go to Frogmore Cottage to demand Meghan and Harry come out with their two children.
She said: ‘It sounds like someone has been drinking mercury in the water. I didn’t hear anything about him following anyone around so I don’t believe that’.
Thomas was rushed to a hospital near his home in Rosarito, Mexico, before being transferred by ambulance to the US border where an ambulance was waiting to ferry him to a hospital in San Diego, California. He has been in a critical-care ward for a week and has made what one doctor told him was ‘remarkable progress’. While he is now able to speak a few words, he faces what he calls ‘an uphill battle’ to regain his power of speech.
Samantha said: ‘I think he feels blessed to be alive. He’s doing well, he can’t speak. He understands and can text and communicate that way. He’s feeling stronger every day, so after two heart attacks, a pandemic and now this, he is rebounding remarkably well.
‘Learning to speak again could take 6 months to a year. All he has to do now is he has to train his mouth and tongue to form the words. He’s very patient, feels very strong about it and has a lot of love and support around him so he’s going to do well’.
The Duchess of Sussex, 40, is understood to have concerns that Thomas is involving her half-siblings Thomas Jr, 55, and Samantha, 57, in his affairs, because she ‘believes they have their own agendas’, an insider said.
A source told The Mirror: ‘Despite their estrangement, Meghan is concerned. She wants to know if there is any way to contact her father privately, without other family knowing about it or having to get involved.’
The insider added: ‘Meghan can’t contact her half-siblings because she believes they have their own agendas.
‘If she can contact their dad, she wants it to be totally private. It won’t involve Netflix, it won’t involve any photographs and it must not involve any tip-offs to the paparazzi.’
MailOnline has contacted Meghan’s team for comment.
Retired Hollywood lighting director Thomas, 77, promptly sent his best wishes to the Queen for a happy Jubilee after suffering a stroke.
He said: ‘I feel hugely grateful and know how lucky I am to be alive.
‘I want to thank everyone, especially the wonderful doctors and nurses who saved my life. They are angels.
‘I have been deeply moved by loving messages I’ve received from all over the world. People have been so kind. I can’t speak right now, but I am working hard and will thank people properly when I can.’
It comes as reports suggested Mr Markle suffered a serious fall in the days leading up to his stroke.
Thomas, who had been preparing to mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations in the UK, told his friend Tom Bower he had ‘fallen’ but ‘thankfully, some good people picked me up from the pavement’, reports the Sun.
Writing on a whiteboard with a felt-tip pen, he said: ‘I wanted to come to pay my respects to the Queen. I wish her a happy Jubilee and many more years.’
‘I have lots of hard work to do and will do it,’ he wrote. ‘I want to get well. I’m so lucky to have had amazing care and love. Thank you everyone.’
Mr Markle was forced to miss his daughter’s wedding to Prince Harry in 2018 after he had two heart attacks just days before.
He blamed them on the stress he suffered after posing for paparazzi pictures to improve his image.
He has been estranged from his daughter ever since and has never met son-in-law Prince Harry or his grandchildren Archie, three, and 11-month-old Lilibet.
Mr Markle will be cared for by his 56-year-old son, Tom Jr, who drove 11 hours through the night to be with his stricken father. ‘I was visiting my son and his family in Oregon when I got the call,’ said Tom Jr.
‘I will be here for Dad and do whatever it takes to help him on his road to recovery. It’s been a terrible shock for everyone but Dad is a strong man and he is determined to get well.
‘He’s already started working with a speech therapist and is making great progress. We’ve received hundreds of messages of support for him from people all over the world.
‘We are so grateful for the outpouring of love for Dad.
‘I’m here for him for as long as it takes.’
On Thursday, Mr Markle’s daughter Samantha said that he may need a year of therapy to recover his speech after being struck down by a stroke this week.
His family had been worried about his high blood pressure for some time before he fell ill, resulting in him losing even the ability to tell paramedics what was wrong with him.
Mr Markle, 77, had to write down his symptoms on a piece of paper.
Samantha said Monday’s ordeal could have been ‘fatal’ but her father was on the mend in a California hospital.
She told GB News last week: ‘I don’t think he saw it coming but he’s doing better – he’s in good spirits. It’s going to take several… maybe six months, maybe a year, to get his speech back. He can work with a speech therapist and it’s good, the attack he had in the speech producing part of the brain wasn’t so big that he can’t recover.’
She added: ‘But you know when you’re almost 80 years old, there’s less plasticity and things are more difficult.
‘So he has the memory of the words and the associations, the stroke was on the right side of the brain, so the damage was on the left and he’s left handed.
‘But it also impaired his speech and his ability to swallow.’
On Thursday, Daily Mail columnist Richard Eden said that Mr Markle was due to stay with Lady Colin Campbell when he visited the UK for the Platinum Jubilee.
Lady Colin, 72, who was criticised for her overbearing behaviour and caustic put-downs when she competed on I’m A Celebrity, had generously offered to put up Mr Markle, 77, at her West Sussex stately home, Castle Goring, which she bought for £700,000 in 2013.
‘She had made plans for Mr Markle,’ one of the royal biographer’s friends told Mr Eden. ‘She’d hired him a dinner jacket and was taking him to Royal Ascot. And she’d organised a black-tie dinner, so he could meet lots of interesting people.’
The former Georgie Ziadie — who has her title thanks to a year-long marriage to the Duke of Argyll’s younger son, Lord Colin Campbell in 1973 — established the connection to Mr Markle via his grandson, Tyler. Her two adopted sons, Michael and Dimitri, appeared with Tyler in an MTV reality show called The Royal World in 2018.
Tyler created a new strain of cannabis called Markle Sparkle ahead of Meghan’s 2018 wedding to Prince Harry. Speaking about Tyler, Lady Colin said: ‘We hit it off straight away. He’s a very nice boy.’ Lady Colin wrote a 2020 biography of Mr Markle’s daughter, Meghan and Harry: The Real Story. Hiring, rather than buying, clothes for Mr Markle was a wise precaution on Lady Colin’s part. The Palace commissioned a £7,000 Savile Row suit for him to wear to Harry and Meghan’s 2018 wedding, only for him to fall ill and stay at home in Rosarito, Mexico.
Roly-poly racing PR man Johnno Spence was later spotted parading around Royal Ascot in the suit.
After also snapping up Thomas’s extra garments, including a summer suit and three shirts, Spence told Mr Eden: ‘They were half price and there’s a bit of room for expansion.’
Last week, social media had some harsh words for Meghan Markle after her surprise appearance at the site of the Uvalde, Texas massacre that killed 21, including 19 children.
Meghan was spotted on Thursday laying a bouquet of white roses at a makeshift memorial outside the Uvalde County Courthouse, not far from the scene of the senseless slayings at Robb Elementary School.
She also stopped by an Uvalde community centre that was hosting a blood drive, where she toured the facility and donated food, a volunteer there told DailyMail.com. ‘She did not want anybody to know who she was,’ the person said.
The duchess took the trip in a personal capacity as a mother, to offer her condolences and support in person to a community experiencing unimaginable grief, her spokesperson told People.
However, some took umbrage with what they felt was the duchess’ attempt to take centre stage after an unimaginable tragedy.
They also highlighted the fact that her estranged father Thomas was in hospital after suffering a stroke – and that Meghan has not visited him.
‘I find her posing like this with no doubt her own photographer utterly disgusting,’ one user tweeted. ‘I’m used to her PR stunts but this actually makes me angry. By all means, pay your respects but posing 4 photographs & releasing to the media is SICK’
Another pointed out that Meghan’s father, Thomas, has been hospitalised after having a stroke.
‘All the way from California to Texas, camera in tow, to strike a pose at the memorial site of dead children,’ tweeted one user. ‘You are callous. Your PR is dark. A flight to Texas but not to your Dad.’
‘Her dad had a massive stroke a few days ago. Apparently no call, card or white roses for him yet,’ wrote another.
Jill Kargman, the author and star of Bravo’s Odd Mom Out, was also critical: ‘This rings hollow and feels opportunistic. I thought she stepped down for privacy? Using dead kids for a photo op isn’t drawing attention to the tragedy it’s drawing attention to her obvious quest to be our People’s Princess. No thanks.’
Speculation has swirled about whether she would visit his bedside in Chula Vista, California, only a few hours’ drive from the home she shares with Prince Harry in Montecito, following years of strain in her relationship with her father.