Meghan Markle's ongoing battle with the British Mail tabloid reveals that the Duchess of Sussex did not feel she was protected by the royal family while she was pregnant. Meghan is suing the newspaper group for privacy violation after it published parts of a letter she sent her estranged father, and new legal filings explain that as the UK tabloid media published an increasing number of "false and damaging" articles about her, causing "tremendous emotional distress and damage to her mental health," her friends (who "had never seen her in this state before") were "rightly concerned for her welfare," the Guardian reports. It adds that they were especially concerned because "she was pregnant, unprotected by the institution, and prohibited from defending herself." No trial date has yet been set, but it is expected to come later this year.
The documents add that Kensington Palace "mandated" that if any of Meghan's friends were approached by a media outlet, they were to respond with "no comment," despite the misinformation being fed to UK tabloids for their articles about her. "This shared frustration amongst the claimant’s friends left everyone feeling silenced, as it appeared that other so-called sources were able to disseminate false statements about the claimant, while people who knew her best were told they needed to remain silent," the filing reads. That's likely why, the filing argues, some of her friends decided to speak anonymously to People defending Markle; one of them mentioned the letter, after which Markle's father gave it to the Mail. Markle had no idea that was happening and was not involved in it, the filing says, per Town & Country. Had she known, she would not have consented to the letter's existence being revealed. (More Meghan Markle stories.)
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