Meghan Markle has scored a massive legal victory in the defamation lawsuit brought against her by her half-sister, Samantha Markle.
Samantha Markle accused Meghan making "demonstrably false and malicious statements" about her to a "worldwide audience" after the explosive 2021 Oprah Winfrey interview.
A Florida judge has dismissed the lawsuit, saying the duchess was expressing "an opinion about her childhood and her relationship with her half-sibling" and a statement of pure opinion was "not capable of being proved false".
In a court order, US District Judge Charlene Edwards Honeywell wrote: "As a reasonable listener would understand it, the defendant merely expresses an opinion about her childhood and her relationship with her half-siblings.
"Thus, the court finds that the defendant's statement is not objectively verifiable or subject to empirical proof.... plaintiff cannot plausibly disprove the defendant's opinion of her own childhood."
The judge specifically noted that there were no examples of defamation to be found in Meghan and Prince Harry’s Netflix docuseries, “Meghan & Harry” or Omid Scobie’s “Finding Freedom.”
Additionally, the judge found no examples of defamation in the couple’s hourlong sit-down interview with Oprah Winfrey that aired on CBS in March 2021.
Florida District Court Judge Charlene Edwards Honeywell found that Samantha, 59, supplied “mischaracterizations of the [interview] transcript” and determined that the couple’s statements about Samantha and their father, Thomas Markle, were “quintessential examples of opinion.”
Samantha sued the “Suits” alum, 42, in March 2022, claiming Meghan made “false and malicious statements” during her sit-down with Winfrey.
She accused the former Tig blogger of falsely claiming to be “an only child” and alleged Meghan lied about the timeframe of when they last saw each other. She also claimed Meghan publicly bashed Thomas in an attempt to sell the world a false “rags-to-royalty” narrative of her life.
Samantha asked for $75,000 in damages and for the cost of court and attorney’s fees.
In response, Meghan called the lawsuit “meritless.”
“We do not empanel juries to rule on whether two people are ‘close,’ or whether one genuinely feels that they ‘grew up as an only child,’” Meghan’s legal response at the time read.
“Courts are not equipped to adjudicate the legitimacy of a person’s feelings about their childhood and relationships. Nor should they be.”